The following events occurred in May 1933:
May 1, 1933 (Monday) In the United States, tornadoes killed 71 people, including 55 in the city of Minden, Louisiana."71 Are Killed by Tornadoes", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 2, 1933, p. 1
May 2, 1933 (Tuesday) The legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when the Inverness Courier, a newspaper in the nearby Scottish city, published a story entitled "Strange Spectacle on Loch Ness".Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, "Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures" (University Press of Kentucky, 2006), p. 36 As the Courier began reporting more sightings, other newspapers picked up the story, with international reporters coming to the Loch by October.Henry H. Bauer, The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery (University of Illinois Press, 1986), p. 36 Gleichschaltung: The day after the International Labor Day, Nazi Germany's Brown Shirts invaded the offices of trade unions, labor banks, consumer cooperatives and other "Marxist economic organizations" that had been affiliated with the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund in cities across the nation."Hitler 'Brown Shirts' Seize Control of German Unions", Milwaukee Journal, May 2, 1933, p. 1
May 3, 1933 (Wednesday) In the Irish Free State, the Dáil Éireann (Ireland's parliament), abolished the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown.Thomas E. Hachey and Lawrence J. McCaffrey, The Irish Experience Since 1800: A Concise History (M.E. Sharpe, 2010), p. 167 Nellie Tayloe Ross, who had been the first woman to be elected Governor of an American state (Wyoming), became the first woman to be named director of the United States Mint. She served until 1953. Born: James Brown, African-American musician known as "The Godfather of Soul", in Barnwell, South Carolina (d. 2006) Steven Weinberg, American theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1979, in New York City. (d. 2021)
May 4, 1933 (Thursday) Chinese author Ding Ling was kidnapped from her home in Shanghai by agents of the Nationalist Chinese government. Over the next three years, the leftist author was moved to various locations in Nanjing. In 1936 she escaped and joined with the Communist Red Army. Ironically, she would be jailed by the Communist Chinese government for her "right wing" views. In 1979 she would come back into favor with the Communist government, and would continue to be published until her death in 1986.Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ding Ling's Fiction: Ideology and Narrative in Modern Chinese Literature (Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 9-16 Baseball pitcher Si Johnson of the Cincinnati Reds fell one hit short of a perfect game, a runner reaching base in the second inning, with no errors and no runs allowed in the 4–0 win over the Braves. Since the runner was tagged out while stealing, Johnson accomplished "27 up and 27 down". On May 18, Johnson would fall another hit short of a perfect game.Greg Rhodes, Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame Highlights: Memorable Moments in Team History As Heard on the Reds Radio Network (Clerisy Press, 2007), p. 104
May 5, 1933 (Friday) Bell Laboratories announced Karl Jansky's discovery of radio waves which appeared to be emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The news was reported on page one of the New York Times: "New Radio Waves Traced to Centre of the Milky Way".,"New Radio Waves Traced to Centre of the Milky Way" , New York Times, May 5, 1933, p. 1 introducing the world to the new science of radio astronomy. Died: Li Ching-Yuen, allegedly 256 years old, Chinese celebrity reported by the press to have been born in 1677."Li Ching-Yung Dead; Gave His Age as 197 – Inquiry Put Age at 256", New York Times, May 6, 1933
May 6, 1933 (Saturday) The Kentucky Derby horse race was won by jockey Donald Meade, riding Brokers Tip, finishing ahead of Herb Fisher on Head Play. Meade and Fisher literally fought each other on the way to the finish line, as photographs showed Meade grabbing Fisher's shoulder, and Fisher pulling on the saddle of Meade's horse, and both continued to fight after the race. Brokers Tip's victory was upheld, though both jockeys were suspended for unsportsmanlike conduct."Duking It Out At The Derby" , by William F. Reed, Sports Illustrated, April 5, 1933, pp. 14–17; "Dirty Derby" in The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal, by George C. Kohn (Infobase Publishing, 2001), p. 108 In a prelude to mass book burnings in Germany, a gang of morally outraged students destroyed the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, burning the contents of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sex Research) in Berlin. Hirschfeld was out of the country at the time and would never return to Germany. He died in 1935 at age 67.Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey (Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 54 Huddersfield defeated Warrington 21–17 to win the Challenge Cup of Rugby League before 41,874 at Wembley Stadium.
May 7, 1933 (Sunday) U.S. President Roosevelt gave his second nationally broadcast radio speech. In a press release, CBS radio executive Harry C. Butcher coined the term "fireside chat" for the President's addresses.Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy, eds., FDR's Fireside Chats (University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), p. xv; "Fireside chats", Encyclopedia of Political Communication SAGE, 2008), pp. 243–4 Born: Johnny Unitas, American football star, in Pittsburgh (d. 2002) Nexhmije Pagarusha, Albanian-Yugoslavian singer and actress, in Pagaruša (d. 2020).
May 8, 1933 (Monday) After the number of inmates at prison camps, penal colonies and gulags in the Soviet Union escalated, Joseph Stalin signed a secret instruction to halt "unwarranted mass arrests in the countryside". The problem, the memo said, was that "Everyone who feels like it, including people who, strictly speaking, have no right to do so, is out arresting people."Galina Mikhaĭlovna Ivanova and Carol Flath, Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System (M.E. Sharpe, 2000), pp. 24–5 Over the next two months, almost half of the prisoners (360,000) were released.Oleg V. Khlevniuk, The History Of The Gulag: From Collectivization To The Great Terror (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 63 Mahatma Gandhi began a fast against untouchability.
May 9, 1933 (Tuesday) The Nazi Party presented its plan for a German national church, based in Wittenberg, that would be limited to "Aryan Christians" and would recognize the sovereignty of the Nazi state."Nazis Outline Church Plan", Milwaukee Journal, May 9, 1933, p. 2 British scholar A. E. Housman gave what Yale professor William Lyon Phelps called "the most famous lecture delivered in the twentieth century". "The Name and Nature of Poetry" was delivered at the University of Cambridge.William Lyon Phelps, Selected Readings From Much Loved Books (Kessinger Publishing, 2005, reprinted from What I Like, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933), p. 331 Mural painter Diego Rivera halted work on Man at the Crossroads, commissioned for the Rockefeller Center in New York, after observers criticized his addition of Communist symbolism, including the face of Vladimir Lenin. The mural would be destroyed in February 1934.John O'Brian, Ruthless Hedonism: The American Reception of Matisse (University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 233 Born: Jessica Steele, English romance novelist, in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (d. 2020)
May 10, 1933 (Wednesday) The National Socialist German Students' League enthusiastically carried out the destruction of "un-German books" on college campuses across Germany.Roderick Stackelberg, The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany (Routledge, 2007), p. 287 In the first official declaration of war by one nation against another since 1918, Paraguay's legislature voted to attack neighboring Bolivia. At Asunción, Paraguay's President Eusebio Ayala signed the measure. Bolivia and Paraguay had been fighting since June 15, 1932, when Bolivia attacked the Paraguayan town of Pitiantuia, in a dispute over the 100,000 square mile territory of the Gran Chaco."War Declared by Paraguay in Chaco Area", Milwaukee Journal, May 10, 1933, p. 1 The Chaco War, in progress since 1932, would last until 1935, leaving over 100,000 people (at least 57,000 Bolivians and 43,000 Paraguayans) dead and a costly Paraguayan victory.Bruce W. Farcau, The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935 (Greenwood Publishing, 1996) Born: Barbara Taylor Bradford, British suspense novelist, in Leeds (d. 2024) Died: Sam Marx, 73, unsuccessful tailor and door-to-door salesman, father of the five Marx Brothers
May 11, 1933 (Thursday) As troops from Japan continued marching through China toward Beijing (called Pei-p'ing at that time), a Japanese bomber flew over the city and dropped handbills with the warning "Cease opposing the Japanese and Manchukuans. Break away from Marshal Chiang Kai-shek or tragedy ... will occur in Peiping and Tientsin." Chinese troops, defending a pass in the Great Wall, had been annihilated earlier in the week."JAPAN ALL READY TO BOMB PEIPING", Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 11, 1933, p. 1 Tornadoes struck the American states Tennessee and Kentucky, leaving 54 people dead in the seventh major storm series in two months."Tornadoes Kill More than 250", Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 11, 1933, p. 1 Saud bin Abdul Aziz was proclaimed Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in an elaborate Bay'ah ceremony. King Saud would succeed to the throne in 1953 upon the death of his father, Ibn Saud, before the royal family withdrew the Bay'ah in 1964.Elie Podeh, The Politics of National Celebrations in the Arab Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 265–6 Born: Louis Farrakhan, Muslim African-American leader of the Nation of Islam organization, as Louis Eugene Wolcott in the Bronx Mychal Judge, Roman Catholic chaplain of the Fire Department of New York, and the first FDNY casualty on September 11, 2001; in Brooklyn.
May 12, 1933 (Friday) The Agricultural Adjustment Act was signed into law by U.S. President Roosevelt, giving the federal government the power to raise farm prices and to provide relief on farm mortgage foreclosures. Also known as the "Wagner Act", the bill provided $500 million for farm relief."Roosevelt Signs Farm Bill; Asks Foreclosure Delay", Milwaukee Journal, May 12, 1933, p. 1 Signed on the same day was the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which would eventually spend four billion dollars to create job programs for unemployed American workers.Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (Penguin, 2011, reprinted from The Viking Press, 1946) Born Andrei Voznesensky, Soviet and Russian poet (d. 2010).
May 13, 1933 (Saturday) Plans to name the massive dam over the Colorado River after the unpopular recent American President Herbert Hoover, were cancelled by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, after which the construction project was referred to as Boulder Dam."Hoover's Name Taken Off Big Colorado Dam", Milwaukee Journal, May 13, 1933, p. 1 A 1947 act of Congress would change the name of the completed structure back to Hoover Dam."Law Makes It Hoover Dam", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 1947, p. 1 Died: Ernest Torrence, 54, Scottish actor
May 14, 1933 (Sunday) The American Rocket Society (then called the American Interplanetary Society) made its first successful launch of a liquid-propellant rocket, firing from the area of Great Kills, Staten Island in New York City. Rocket 2 reached an altitude of propelled by gasoline, but its liquid oxygen fuel failed to ignite.John Catchpole, Project Mercury: NASA's First Manned Space Programme (Springer, 2001), pp. 23–4 The League of Nations affirmed the historic neutrality of Switzerland, by adopting a resolution to that effect."Neutrality of States", in Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 1547 Born: Siân Phillips, British actress, in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Wales.
May 15, 1933 (Monday)