Ninety Years Ago Today

What can we say about 11 December 1933, ninety years ago today? Thanks to countless resources now available online, and with a little help from generative AI (Bard and ChatGPT), we can actually say quite a bit.

On 11 December 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the first year of his presidency. He would go on to serve three full terms before dying early in his fourth term (1933–1945). Fourteen presidents have since followed: Harry S. Truman (1945–1953), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961), John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969), Richard M. Nixon (1969–1974), Gerald R. Ford (1974–1977), Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), George Bush (1989–1993), Bill Clinton (1993–2001), George W. Bush (2001–2009), Barack Obama (2009–2017), Donald J. Trump (2017–2021), and Joseph R. Biden (2021–). Thus someone born on 11 December 1933 has seen exactly a third of all the U.S. presidents who have ever held office. To look at the matter differently, someone born on that date has been alive for 38.5 percent of our nation’s history since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 (i.e., 90 of 234 years).

In other parts of the world, the Nazis had seized control of the German government in 1932, and Adolf Hitler, appointed chancellor early in 1933, now exercised absolute control over the nation. The Soviet Union, just as firmly in the grip of a dictatorial leader, Joseph Stalin, had just passed through a severe multiyear famine (1930–1933) that had led to the deaths of millions, including, in all likelihood, some from our broader Molotschna family. Since then, both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, along with their tyrannical leaders, have ceased to exist, cast onto the proverbial dust heap of history (Trotsky).

On 11 December 1933, almost the entire world was in the throes of the Great Depression, whose start is typically dated to 1929. By 1933, the gross domestic product in the United States had decreased from its 1929 levels by 30 percent. Prices of goods produced fell dramatically, and the unemployment rate increased to nearly a quarter of the working population. This economic collapse extended across all classes and sectors of society, including America’s farms. Wheat, for example, sold for $1.50 a bushel in 1922 but only 57¢ on 11 December 1933. Likewise, corn fetched 85¢ a bushel in 1923 but only 30¢ in 1933. Not surprisingly, many farm families, unable to pay their mortgages or feed their children, were forced to walk away from the land into which they had poured their lives.

This is the world that someone born on 11 December 1933 entered. Of course, our world never stands still, and someone born that day has witnessed significant changes, challenges, and developments. Major world events include the establishment of Social Security (1934), Jesse Owens winning four gold medals (1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Hindenburg disaster (1937), World War II (1939–1945), D-Day (1944), atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1947), the creation of the State of Israel (1948), the formation of NATO (1949), the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), Elvis Presley recording his first single (1954), Sputnik I (1957), the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states (1959), the assassination of Kennedy (1963), Israel’s Six-Day War (1967), the Green Bay Packers winning Super Bowls I and II (1967–1968) the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy (1968), the Apollo 11 moon landing (1969), Nebraska winning its first national championship (1971), the end of the Vietnam War (1973), Nixon’s resignation (1974), the death of Elvis Presley (1977), the Iranian Revolution (1979), the eruption of Mount St. Helens (1980), the launch of Apple Macintosh (1984), the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), the creation of the European Union (1992), O. J. Simpson’s arrest and trial (1994), the founding of Google (1998), the September 11 terrorist attacks (2001), the invasion of Iraq (2003), the sale of the first iPhone (2007), the swine flu pandemic (2009), the killing of Osama bin Laden (2011), Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014), Donald Trump’s election as president (2016), the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2021), and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2022)—to name just a few.

Inventions since 1933 include items as mundane as the ballpoint pen and as spectacular as jet engines, the transistor, the personal computer, the cell phone, and (Bard tells me) artificial intelligence. Someone born in 1933 may well have begun life in a home without electricity or indoor plumbing; now one must go camping (or to an underdeveloped country) to experience that sort of life.

The price of a Ford Model T was $445 in 1933. Today’s Ford Escape ranges from $27,000 to $40,000. In 1933 an acre of Nebraska farmland cost, on average, $21.20; in 2023 it is $3,835. A loaf of bread was a nickel and a gallon of milk 30¢ in 1933; today that bread will cost at least $1.32 and the milk in excess of $3.00. The average cost of a gallon of gasoline was 18¢ in 1933; ninety years later it is “down” to $3.16.

Without a doubt, someone born on 11 December 1933 has experienced both lows and highs, challenges and successes, mourning and celebration. But reaching the milestone of ninety years of a life well lived is cause for pure, unrestrained celebration. So on this, your ninetieth birthday, Dad, all your family and loved ones not only celebrate with you but also celebrate you, May you have many, many more!