1939





Events

   * January 26 - Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to Francisco Franco and
     aided by Italy take Barcelona.
   * February 27 - Sit-down strikes are outlawed by the Supreme Court of the
     United States.
   * March 2 - Pius XII becomes Pope
   * March 3 - In Bombay, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the
     autocratic rule in India.
   * March 15 - World War II: Nazi troops occupy the remaining part of
     Czechia (inner Bohemia and Moravia); Czechoslovakia ceases to exist.
   * March 22 - World War II: Germany takes Memel from Lithuania
   * March 28 - Dictator Francisco Franco conquers Madrid, ending the
     Spanish Civil War
   * April 4 - Faisal II becomes King of Iraq.
   * April 7 - World War II: Italy invades Albania.
   * May 22 - World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
   * July 4 - The concentration camp Neuengamme becomes autonomous.
   * July 6 - Holocaust: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany
     are closed.
   * August 23 - Hitler and Stalin divides eastern Europe between
     themselves. Finland, the Baltic states and eastern Poland to USSR.
     Western Poland to Germany (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)
   * August 27 - A Heinkel 178, the first jet-powered aircraft, flies for
     the last time.
   * September 1 - World War II: Polish September Campaign - Nazi Germany
     attacks Poland, beginning the war
   * September 3 - World War II: France, Australia and the United Kingdom
     declare war on Germany.
   * September 5 - World War II: The United States declares its neutrality
     in the war.
   * September 6 - World War II: South Africa declares war on Germany.
   * September 10 - Canada declares war on Germany.
   * September 17 - Soviet Union invades Poland and then occupies eastern
     Polish territories.
   * September 27 - Warsaw surrender to Germans; Modlin surrender day later;
     last Polish large operational unit surrender near Kock eight days
     later.
   * October 8 - World War II: Germany annexes Western Poland.
   * October 10 - World War II: The Munich Agreement cedes the Sudetenland
     to Germany.
   * October 11 - Manhattan Project: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt is
     presented with a letter signed by Albert Einstein urging the United
     States to rapidly develop an atomic bomb program.
   * October 15 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia
     Airport) is dedicated.
   * November 8 - Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans in
     an action known as the Venlo Incident.
   * November 30 - Soviet Union attacks Finland, starting the Winter War.
   * December 25 - A Christmas Carol was read before a radio audience for
     the first time.

   * Batman created by Bob Kane.
   * Nuclear fission discovered independently by Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn
   * Kirlian photography invented by Semyon Kirlian
   * Siam changes its name to Thailand
   * A logging crew sets off a second forest fire in the Tillamook Burn,
     which destroys 190,000 acres

Ongoing events

   * Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
   * Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Art, Culture & Fashion

   * 1939 in film
        o August 12 - The Wizard of Oz
        o December 15 - Gone With the Wind premiers in Atlanta.
        o Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring Jimmy Stewart
        o Of Mice and Men
        o Wuthering Heights
   * 1939 in music
        o January 18 - Louis Armstrong records "Jeepers Creepers."
        o Frequency modulation (FM) is invented
   * 1939 in sports
   * July 4 - Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral
     sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considered himself
     "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" as he announces his
     retirement from major league baseball.
   * 1939 in television
        o April - television demonstrations are held at the World's Fair in
          New York and the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San
          Francisco
        o April 30 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, appearing at the World's
          Fair, becomes the first U.S. president to give a speech that is
          broadcast on television
        o May 17 - The first baseball game (Princeton-Columbia) is broadcast
          on television, from Baker Field in New York. Bill Stern was the
          announcer
        o June 1 - The first heavyweight boxing match is televised, Max Baer
          vs Lou Nova, form Yankee Stadium.
        o August 26 - The first major league baseball game is telecast, a
          double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers
          at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn.
        o September 1 - As the war began, the BBC abruptly stopped its
          broadcasting in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon (The BBC
          would resume its broadcasting at that same point after the war in
          1945)
        o The DuMont company begins producing consumer television sets
        o September 30 - The first televised college football game, Fordham
          vs Waynesburg, at Randall's Island, New York.
        o October 22 - The first MLB game is televised. The Brooklyn Dodgers
          vs Philadelphia Eagles at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn.

Births

   * January 3 - Bobby Hull, hockey player
   * January 10 - Bill Toomey, track and field athlete
   * January 10 - Sal Mineo, actor (+ 1976)
   * January 17 - Maury Povich, talk show host
   * January 19 - Phil Everly, musician
   * January 21 - Wolfman Jack, disk jockey, actor (+ 1995)
   * January 24 - Doug Kershaw, musician
   * January 24 - Ray Stevens, country music musician
   * January 29 - Germaine Greer, writer, feminist
   * February 6 - Mike Farrell, actor
   * February 10 - Roberta Flack, singer
   * February 11 - Jane Hyatt Yolen, science fiction author.
   * February 12 - Ray Manzarek, keyboardist
   * February 23 - Peter Fonda, actor
   * February 23 - Majel Barrett, actress
   * February 28 - Erika Pluhar, actress and singer
   * February 28 - Tommy Tune, dancer, choreographer, actor
   * March 13 - Neil Sedaka, singer
   * March 19 - Joe Kapp, American football star
   * March 20 - Brian Mulroney, eighteenth Prime Minister of Canada
   * March 26 - James Caan, actor
   * March 27 - Cale Yarborough, NASCAR racer
   * March 31 - Volker Schlšndorff, film director
   * April 2 - Marvin Gaye, singer (+ 1984)
   * April 4 - Hugh Masakela, musician
   * April 7 - Francis Ford Coppola, American film director
   * April 7 - Sir David Frost, broadcaster, television host
   * May 7 - Ruud Lubbers, politician and Prime Minister of the Netherlands
   * May 7 - Jimmy Ruffin, singer
   * May 9 - Ralph Boston, athlete
   * May 13 - Harvey Keitel, actor
   * May 18 - Hark Bohm, film director
   * May 19 - Dick Scobee, astronaut (+ 1986)
   * May 23 - Reinhard Hauff, film director
   * May 25 - Ian McKellen, actor
   * May 30 - Michael J. Pollard, actor
   * June 6 - Louis Andriessen, Dutch composer
   * June 11 - Jackie Stewart, Formula One racing driver
   * July 26 - John Howard, Australian Prime Minister
   * July 26 - Bob Lilly, NFL football player
   * August 5 - Princess Irene of the Netherlands
   * August 30 - John Peel, Radio 1 DJ
   * September 23 - Janusz Gajos, Polish actor
   * October 14 - Ralph Lauren, American fashion designer
   * October 24 - F. Murray Abraham, Actor
   * November 23 - Bill Bissett, Canadian anti-conventional poet
   * December 18 - Michael Moorcock, English science fiction author

Deaths

   * January 24 - Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician and Muesli
     inventor
   * January 28 - William Butler Yeats, writer
   * February 10 - Pope Pius XI
   * February 11 - Franz Schmidt, Austrian composer
   * February 12 - S. P. L. S¿rensen, Danish chemist
   * March 19 - Lloyd L. Gaines, American civil rights activist
   * October 7 - Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (* 1869)
   * November 28 - James Naismith, inventor of basketball
   * December 3 - Princess Louise of the United Kingdom, Duchess of Argyll,
     fourth daughter of Queen Victoria
   * December 23 - Anthony Fokker, aircraft manufacturer

Nobel Prizes

   * Physics - Ernest Orlando Lawrence
   * Chemistry - Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, Leopold Ruzicka
   * Medicine - Gerhard Domagk
   * Literature - Frans Eemil SillanpŠŠ
   * Peace - not awarded