I’m in the midst of planning a milestone birthday party, but I’m not the only one. CropLife America will be celebrating its 75th anniversary during its annual meeting later this month. The organization, featured in “75 Years of Advocacy” in the September issue of CropLife R magazine, has continued to be the “voice” of the crop protection industry. To gain some perspective, let’s look at 74 other events that happened in 1933:
- Construction of the Golden Gate and Oakland Bay bridges begins.
- U.S. Congress votes in favor of Philippines independence, against the view of president Hoover.
- The first airing of episode 1 of 2,956 episodes of the radio program, The Lone Ranger.
- The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution goes into effect.
- The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Co. introduces the first singing telegram, sent to Rudy Vallee as a birthday greeting.
- The magazine Newsweek is published for the first time.
- Mount Rushmore is dedicated.
- American President Herbert Clark Hoover is succeeded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
- Frances Perkins becomes U.S. Secretary of Labor, first female member of the U.S. Cabinet.
- Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday," closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.
- The U.S. Congress begins its first 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. Several new government programs are introduced: The Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority,and the Civil Works Administration.
- Earthquake in Long Beach, CA, kills 117 people.
- Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed.
- The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
- Japan and Germany leave the League of Nations.
- Born: Japanese crown prince Akihito, Jayne Mansfield, Elizabeth ‘Bewitched’ Montgomery, Rod McKuen, Trigger, Yoko Ono, Joan Collins, and Willie Nelson.
- Detection by Karl Jansky of radio waves from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy reported.
- The Century of Progress world’s fair opens in Chicago, IL.
- The first drive-in theater opened in Camden, NJ.
- Wiley Post becomes first person to fly solo around the world, traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours, and 45 minutes.
- Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
- Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
- Dust Bowl: In South Dakota, a very strong dust storm strips topsoil from desiccated farmlands (this is just one of a series of disastrous dust storms that year).
- The U.S. and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.
- Prohibition is repealed.
- The Nissan Motor Co. was organized in Tokyo, Japan.
- FM radio is patented.
- Lena Horne, age 16, first performs at Harlem’s Cotton Club.
- First broadcast of "The Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen." The series causes model-airplane frenzy.
- Art Deco is in full stride.
- ”Cavalcade” (screenplay by Noel Coward) wins Oscar for Best Picture. Other movies include “Island of Lost Souls,” considered by many as the best horror film ever made, plus “Dinner at Eight,” “Little Women,” “Duck Soup,” “King Kong,” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
- Radio City Music Hall opens.
- Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers first work together in "Flying Down to Rio.”
- The 13th Dali Lama dies.
- Mary Pickford makes her last movie. Clara Bow permanently retires from the Silver Screen.
- Eight-year-old Sammy Davis Jr. appears in movies for the first time, in "Mr. Jordan for President," also makes "Rufus Meets the President."
- U.S. government bans private ownership of gold (repealed in 1976).
- Loch Ness Monster first photographed.
- "42nd Street" (Busby Berkley) released.
- Books published include "Lost Horizon,” "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," and "God’s Little Acre.”
- Average U..S income is $1,048.
- Charles and Anne M. Lindbergh set out to Greenland on their last air-routing flight. Their Lockheed Sirius was later named the "Tingmissartoq," which means something like "man who flies like a bird" in the Eskimo language.
- MGM fires Buster Keaton for drinking.
- RCA Victor introduces an affordable, easily installed car radio.
- First two-piece women’s bathing suit introduced.
- Wiley Post flies around the world solo in his plane, the Winnie Mae. An autopilot ("Mechanical Mike") was used for the first time on the flight.
- First airplane expedition to fly over Mt. Everest.
- "Stormy Weather" written.
- 1933 is considered to be the origination of modern bubble-gum cards; baseball cards begin to be packaged with chewing gum (previously they were sold with cigarettes).
- Machine Gun Kelly nabbed, cries "Don’t shoot, G-Men!"
- Marconi installs a microwave radio station at the Vatican.
- An RKO Studios memo lists words that cannot be used in movies, including alley cat, broad, chippies, dame, fanny, mistress, moll, nude, punk, sex, sexual, slut, trollop, want you, wench, and whore.
- Russia’s first liquid-fuel rocket is launched in November.
- Lady Bird Johnson graduates from University of Texas with a degree in Liberal Arts.
- Woman of the Year: Katherine Hepburn.
- The only notable alteration in Levi Jeans is the removal of the copper rivet from the crotch.
- Last Tom & Jerry cartoon: "Phantom Rocket."
- FDIC created.
- Calvin Coolidge dies.
- Perry Mason solves his first case.
- Louis Martini vinyards (Northern California) founded.
- American English becomes respectable.
- NBC starts broadcasting from newly-completed Rockefeller Center.
- German engineer Hermann Sorgel seeks international support for a proposal to build a dam at the Strait of Gibraltar, then cut a canal to flood the Sahara below sea level.
- Ocean City, MD hit by a hurricane in August. This was the last hurricane to approach the coast directly from the east until 1995.
- Miss Hungary of 1933: Zsa Zsa Gabor.
- Precursor to the ViewMasterTM appears.
- Robert E Cox (1917-1989) builds his first telescope, a 6-inch reflector.
- The New York Giants beat the Washington Senators to win the World Series.
- The automated bowling alley is developed.
- Lockheed begins design of a twin-engine aircraft that eventually led to the P-38 "lightning" in 1939.
- Disney animated cartoon "The Three Little Pigs" released (Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?).
- Gene Kelly graduates from the University of Pittsburgh.
On a more serious note, Charlie Cook, widely regarded as a leading authority on U.S. elections and political trends, will be the keynote speaker for CropLife America’s 2008 annual meeting, which will take place Sept. 28-30 in Orlando, FL. The latest information for attendees about the annual meeting, themed “Advocates for Agriculture,” can be found at www.croplifeamerica.org.
