(1933) Franklin Roosevelt survives assassination attemptSpeaking from the back of an open car near Miami, Florida, President-elect Roosevelt is missed by Giuseppe Zangara’s bullets, but they bring down five others, including Chicago’s mayor, Anton Cermak, who will die 19 days later.Giuseppe “Joe” Zangara was an Italian immigrant and naturalized citizen of the United States who attempted to assassinate then-President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 15, 1933. During a night speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a couple days before. He missed his target and instead injured five bystanders, killing Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago.
Born: Sep 07, 1900 · Ferruzzano, Italy Died: Mar 20, 1933 · Raiford, United States Height: 5′ 1″ (1.55 m)
Highlights
1900: Zangara was born on September 7, 1900, in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy.
1923: After serving in the Tyrolean Alps in World War I, he did a variety of menial jobs in his home village before emigrating with his uncle to the United States in 1923.
1929: He settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929.
1933: Zangara was an Italian American anarchist who shot Cermak and four others in Miami, Florida, on February 15, 1933, during a night speech by United States President–elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1933: After spending only 10 days on death row, Zangara was executed on March 20, 1933 in Old Sparky, the electric chair at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
(1933) Champagne corks pop as prohibition ends in AmericaUtah casts the last vote needed to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution that repeals the now-reviled 18th Amendment, which had made the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol illegal. Some states will opt to stay dry for years, and Mississippi won’t repeal prohibition until 1966.
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted activists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the alcoholic beverage trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition. One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.
Promoted by the “dry” crusaders, the movement was led by pietistic Protestants and social Progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic, and Republican parties. It gained a national grass roots base through the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. After 1900 it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized “wet” supporters from the Catholic and German Lutheran communities. They had funding to fight back but by 1917–18 the German community had been marginalized by the nation’s war against Germany, and the brewing industry was shut down in state after state by the legislatures and finally nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. Enabling legislation, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the federal ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. For example, religious use of wine was allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol were not made illegal under federal law, but local laws were stricter in many areas, with some states banning possession outright.
In the 1920s the laws were widely disregarded, and tax revenues were lost. Very well organized criminal gangs took control of the beer and liquor supply for many cities, unleashing a crime wave that shocked the nation. By the late 1920s a new opposition mobilized nationwide. Wets attacked prohibition as causing crime, lowering local revenues, and imposing rural Protestant religious values on urban America. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933. Some states continued statewide prohibition, marking one of the last stages of the Progressive Era.
Although popular opinion believes that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol consumption in half during the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels until the 1940s, suggesting that Prohibition did socialize a significant proportion of the population in temperate habits, at least temporarily. Some researchers contend that its political failure is attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of urban crime organizations and a century of Prohibition-influenced legislation. As an experiment it lost supporters every year, and lost tax revenue that governments needed when the Great Depression began in 1929.
(1933) United States opens diplomacy with Soviet UnionUS President Franklin Roosevelt tells Soviet senior diplomat Maxim Litvinov in a telegram that he hopes the two countries will “forever remain normal and friendly.” This simple note establishes diplomatic relations between the nations. The US had broken off Soviet relations after the 1917 Russian Revolution.The relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991) succeeded the previous relations from 1776 to 1917 and predate today’s relations that began in 1992. Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were established late due to mutual hostility. During World War II, the two countries were briefly allies. At the end of the war, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to appear between the two countries, escalating into the Cold War; a period of tense hostile relations, with periods of détente.
Map indicating locations of United States and Soviet Union (including spheres of influence relations)
(1933) Szilárd’s stroll sets off a nuclear chain reactionHungarian physicist Leó Szilárd has been puzzling over using atoms as a form of energy, and as he strolls London’s streets, he suddenly conceives the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, which will lead to his work in the atom bomb’s formation and the harnessing of nuclear energy.Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-born physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi in 1934, and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein’s signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb.
Lived: Feb 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964 (age 66) Spouse: Gertrud Weiss Szilard (m. 1951) Academic advisors: Albert Einstein · Max von Laue Inventions: Einstein refrigerator Education: Budapest University of Technology and Economics · Technical University of Berlin · Humboldt University of Berlin Awards: Albert Einstein Award (1960)
Highlights
1922: His doctoral dissertation on thermodynamics Über die thermodynamischen Schwankungserscheinungen (On The Manifestation of Thermodynamic Fluctuations), praised by Einstein, won top honors in 1922.
1938: Foreseeing another war in Europe, Szilard moved to the United States in 1938, where he worked with Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn on means of creating a nuclear chain reaction.
1950: He publicly sounded the alarm against the possible development of salted thermonuclear bombs, explaining in radio talk on February 26, 1950, that sufficiently big thermonuclear bomb rigged with specific but common materials, might annihilate mankind.
1951: Leó Szilárd married Gertrud Weiss Szilard in 1951.
1961: The Voice of the Dolphins, and Other Stories written by Leó Szilárd was first published in 1961.
1964: On May 30, 1964, he died in his sleep of a heart attack; when Trude awoke, she was unable to revive him.
An image from the Fermi–Szilard “neutronic reactor” patent
(1844) Young Men’s Christian Association offers London refugeGeorge Williams, formerly of rural Somerset, England, and now working as a draper in London, is shocked by the decadence of city life and so opens the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) to give other Industrial Revolution laborers a wholesome alternative to taverns and brothels.The Young Men’s Christian Association is a worldwide organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 57 million beneficiaries from 125 national associations. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London and aims to put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy “body, mind, and spirit.” These three angles are reflected by the different sides of the triangle—part of all YMCA logos.
Website: www.ymca.int Founded: Jun 06, 1844 Headquarters: Geneva Founder: George Williams Phone number: +1 8008729622
wiki/YMCA(1933) America’s car and movie mania meet in New JerseyRichard Hollingshead opens his “automobile movie theatre” in Camden County, New Jersey, featuring 400 car slots, a 40-x-50-foot screen, and three 6-foot speakers. The feature at the first US drive-in theater is ‘Wives Beware,’ with admission costing a quarter per car and customer.A drive-in theater or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars. Some drive-ins have small playgrounds for children and a few picnic tables or benches.
Inventor: Richard Hollingshead
wiki/Drive-in_theater(1944) Allied invasion of Europe beginsFour years and two days after Allied forces evacuated from the European mainland, they return in the Normandy landings, the largest amphibious military assault in history. By the end of the day, 5,000 vessels land 160,000 troops on the French coastline, launching the push to defeat Germany.The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Date: Jun 06, 1944
wiki/Normandy_landings(1971) ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ signs off after 22 yearsTruly a ‘really big show,’ Ed Sullivan’s CBS variety hour ends after reigning as perhaps the most widely seen show biz showcase in US history. The Sunday evening staple helped launch the biggest stars of the era, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, and The Supremes.Ed Sullivan’s show was straight out of old vaudeville; brief acts of every description, from slapstick comedy to operatic arias. At least once, he showed a film, the only known film of Anna Pavlova (doing her Swan Dance). The Muppets’ first TV appearance was on Ed Sullivan. Stiff and expressionless, with a peculiar voice and a talent for mispronunciation, Sullivan was at least as recognizable as Cronkite to early 60’s viewers.
First episode: Jun 20, 1948 Episode duration: 60 minutes Creators: Ed Sullivan · Marlo Lewis Theme song: Toast Producer: Chester Feldman Awards: Peabody Award · Primetime Emmy Award for Best Variety Series · Golden Globe Award for Television Achievement
(1933) Franklin Roosevelt survives assassination attempt
