Headlines for 1933
A podcast about the great movie years.
As you may have seen, we’ve just announced a new paid subscription tier. One of the perks of that tier is a weekly “headlines” post, in which Mike not only shares the headlines he’s gathered for the show, but links to more information and related YouTube videos and all sorts of other good stuff. Here’s an example - if you like what you see, head on over to the subscription page and sign up!
On January 30 German president Paul von Hindenburg appointed the dumb little mustache guy Chancellor and started a whole thing that wouldn’t end until Nazi #1 shot himself in the face 12 years later bc they’re cowards and losers and eventually that’s what they all do.
On Feb 10 the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City introduced the first singing telegram - which is a thing you can still get. Costs about $100 but I’m sure you could get it down in this gig economy.
On Feb 15 Giuseppe Zangara tried to kill Franklin Roosevelt, but he was too short to see over the lady in front of him, so he stood on a rickety folding chair that fucked up his aim. He missed Frankie D, but he hit five other people and killed the mayor of Chicago. At his sentencing he said “I no afraid of that chair! You one of capitalists. You is crook man too. Put me in electric chair, I no care!”, and they did just that not even five weeks later.
On March 4 Roosevelt was sworn in as President for the first time and apparently did not choose to pardon Comrade Zandara.
On March 5 Roosevelt closed all the banks for a week bc the Depression was cratering the world economy - but here’s my question…famously it was WWII that got us out of the Depression bc England, et.al., had to buy bread and guns from us but where the fuck was that money when people needed it to eat instead of fight?
Also in March Gareth Jones started reporting on the Holodomor, a famine in Ukraine that was created by the Soviet leadership and killed millions. Harvard has a comprehensive website that combines narrative and graphics in an interesting way if you want to know more.
One last Nazi story and it’s a good one: on April 20, under pressure from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to make films with a more Third Reich-friendly POV, director and friend of the show Fritz Lang divorces his wife, the screenwriter and Nazi Thea von Harbou, and on July 31 leaves Germany permanently.
In May Karl Jansky discovered radio waves coming from the center of the Milky Way and invented radio astronomy, a science that continues to this day - when you see arrays of huge satellite dish looking things, they’re used in radio astronomy to pick up signals.
The summer was basically just the dust bowl and people starving.
September 6th - the Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety is published for the first time.
In October Albert Einstein moved to the U.S.
And on December 5th the 21st amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, repealing prohibition and paving the way for wine snobs, and homebrewers, and mixologists and also everyone who knows how to have a drink without making it their personality. Anyway, here’s a video of me making beer:
Poor people have sex so some babies were born in ‘33: Susan Sontag, Ernest J. Gaines, Kim Novak, Willie Nelson, Yoko Ono, Bob Rafelson, Nina Simone the Queen (peace be upon her), Sir Michael Caine, Quincy Jones (!), Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Unita Blackwell, Edward G. Robinson, Philip Roth, Renée Taylor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, James Brown, Jayne Mansfield, Carol Burnett, Gene Wilder, Danny Aiello, neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dom DeLuise, Conway Twitty, Fred Willard, anti-racist activist Jane Elliott - creator of the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes exercise, and finally…tell me a joke…betcha Joan Rivers would have one by now.
In sports - the NY Giants beat the Washington Senators to win the World Series.
Primo Carnera beat Jack Sharkey in the sixth-round to become Heavyweight Champion.
England beat Australia 4-1 to regain The Ashes, employing bodyline tactics for the first time ever in a major competition - I won’t mention the sport bc Jason already said he won’t talk to me about it.
The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup.
And finally, there was no World Cup, but Malcolm Campbell drove his car the Blue Bird 272.46 miles per hour at Daytona Beach, FL, setting the land speed record for the time. He would be the first person to go over 300 mph a couple years later in a modified version of the car and when I’m tired he’s my hero for being dedicated to something so utterly meaningless.
That’s headlines.
-Mike