The Reichstag fire occurred on February 27, 1933, and played an important role in strengthening Nazi power in Germany. According to the Nazis' official version, the arson was committed by the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe, for which he was sentenced to death. January 30 became the first day of the rule of the Hitler regime—Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany.
The famine in the USSR in 1932–1933 (in Ukraine officially referred to as the "Holodomor") was a mass famine in the USSR across the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, the Southern Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, which caused significant loss of life (by various estimates, from 2 to 8 million people). The main cause of this famine was collectivization and dekulakization. The situation was worsened by crop failure and repression against peasants.
On November 16, 1933, in Washington, in the Oval Office of the White House, USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt announced the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.