Timeline March 1933

Events in March 1933 21

• 1873 – 1933 Anton Cermak (1873-1933) Died 6 March 1933, aged 59 Czech-born mayor of Chicago who founded the city's Democratic machine. He was fatally wounded in Miami by Giuseppe Zangara during an attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt's life.
• 1929 – 1933 Hoover presidency 31st President — 1929 to 1933 Herbert Hoover served as the 31st President from March 4, 1929 to March 4, 1933. The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 occurred just months into his term, leading to the Great Depression.
• 1933 Battle of Rehe Japan seizes the Chinese province of Rehe Japanese and Manchukuo forces invaded Rehe in February and took the province within weeks, pushing on to the Great Wall. The fighting was ended by the Tanggu Truce.
• 1933 Japan leaves the League of Nations Japanese delegation walks out over the Manchuria report After the League adopted the Lytton Report condemning Japan's seizure of Manchuria on 24 February, the Japanese delegation walked out of the assembly. Japan formally gave notice of withdrawal on 27 March.
• 1933 1933 World Snooker Championship Joe Davis Title 7 Winner: Joe Davis; Runner-up: Willie Smith. Score: 25–18.
• 1933 King Kong premieres RKO's giant-ape film opens in New York King Kong premiered on 2 March at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy. Its stop-motion effects by Willis O'Brien made it a landmark of special effects cinema.
• 1933 Sanriku earthquake and tsunami Earthquake off northeast Japan triggers a deadly tsunami A magnitude 8.4 earthquake struck off the Sanriku coast on 3 March. The tsunami that followed killed about 3,000 people.
• 1933 Dollfuss suspends the Austrian parliament Chancellor begins ruling Austria by decree After all three presiding officers of the National Council resigned on 4 March, Engelbert Dollfuss prevented parliament from reconvening. He went on to build the authoritarian corporative state.
• 1933 – 1945 F.D. Roosevelt presidency 32nd President — 1933 to 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt served as the 32nd President from March 4, 1933 until his death on April 12, 1945. He implemented the New Deal to combat the Great Depression and led the Allied powers through most of World War II.
• 1933 Frances Perkins becomes US Secretary of Labor First woman appointed to a US cabinet Perkins took office on 4 March and served for all twelve years of Roosevelt's presidency. She played a central role in creating Social Security and US labour standards.
• 1933 German federal election Last multi-party election of the Weimar era Held on 5 March amid intimidation after the Reichstag fire, the election gave the Nazi Party 43.9 percent of the vote. With its nationalist coalition partners it gained a slim majority in the Reichstag.
• 1933 US national bank holiday Roosevelt closes all US banks to halt bank runs Roosevelt declared a nationwide bank holiday on 6 March, and Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act on 9 March. Banks found sound were allowed to reopen from 13 March.
• 1933 Long Beach earthquake Earthquake damages schools across southern California The magnitude 6.4 earthquake on 10 March killed about 120 people and destroyed many school buildings. Its aftermath led to California's Field Act, which set earthquake standards for schools.
• 1933 First fireside chat Roosevelt addresses Americans directly over the radio On 12 March, Roosevelt explained the banking crisis to the nation in the first of his radio fireside chats. The broadcasts became a defining feature of his presidency.
• 1933 – 2020 Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) Died 18 September 2020, aged 87 Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as a US Supreme Court justice from 1993 until her death, becoming a pioneering advocate for gender equality and a cultural icon known as "the Notorious RBG." She died of complications from pancreatic cancer on 18 September 2020.
• 1933 – 2018 Philip Roth (1933-2018) Died 22 May 2018, aged 85 American novelist celebrated for works including Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral and The Human Stain. He won nearly every major American literary award, though never the Nobel Prize in Literature. His fiction often explored Jewish-American identity and postwar society.
• 1933 Portugal's Estado Novo constitution Salazar's authoritarian regime formalised A new constitution was approved in a plebiscite on 19 March and came into force on 11 April. It established the Estado Novo, which ruled Portugal until 1974.
• 1933 Dachau concentration camp opens First regular Nazi concentration camp established near Munich Dachau opened on 22 March, initially to hold political prisoners, mainly communists and social democrats. It became the model for the later Nazi camp system and operated until its liberation in 1945.
• 1933 Enabling Act passed in Germany Reichstag gives Hitler's cabinet power to make laws without parliament The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act on 23 March, allowing the government to enact laws without parliamentary consent for four years. It became the legal foundation of the Nazi dictatorship.
• 1933 Polyethylene discovered ICI chemists create the first polyethylene by accident On 27 March, Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett at Imperial Chemical Industries produced a waxy solid while reacting ethylene under high pressure. Polyethylene became the world's most widely used plastic.
• 1933 Renounces Germany again Surrenders his passport at the consulate in Antwerp Hearing of the Nazi seizure of power while abroad, Einstein gave up his German citizenship and resigned from the Prussian Academy in March 1933. His books were burned in Berlin that May. A magazine printed his photograph under the caption not yet hanged.