1939
1939 (
MCMXXXIX) was a
common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar).
January
*
January 2 - End of term for
Frank Finley Merriam, 28th
Governor of California. He is succeeded by
Culbert Levy Olson.
*
January 13 -
Black Friday: 71 people die across
Victoria in one of Australia's worst ever
bushfires.
*
January 24 -
Earthquake kills 30.000 in
Chile – about 50.000 sq mi razed
*
January 26 -
Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to
Francisco Franco and aided by
Italy take
Barcelona.
February
*
February 2 -
Hungary joins
Anti-Comintern Pact*
February 10 -
Falangists take
Catalonia*
February 21 -
Golden Gate International Exposition opens in
San Francisco, California*
February 27 -
United Kingdom and
France recognize
Franco's government
*
February 27 -
Borley Rectory burns
*
February 27 - Sit-down
strikes are outlawed by the
Supreme Court of the United States.
*
February 28 - The first issue of
Serbian weekly magazine
Politikin zabavnik was published.
March
*
March 2 -
Pius XII becomes
Pope*
March 3 - In
Bombay,
Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in
India.
*
March 3 - Students at
Harvard University demonstrate the new tradition of swallowing
gold fish to reporters.
*
March 14 -
Slovak provincial assembly proclaims independence - priest
Jozef Tiso becomes the president of independent Slovak government
*
March 15 -
German troops occupy the remaining part of
Bohemia and
Moravia;
Czechoslovakia ceases to exist; beginning hostilities leading to
WWII*
March 16 - Marriage of Princess
Fawzia of Egypt to Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran*
March 22 -
Germany takes
Memel from
Lithuania*
March 26 -
The Philadelphia Story, a
comedy by
Philip Barry starring
Katharine Hepburn, debuts at the
Shubert Theater in
New York City.
*
March 28 - Dictator
Francisco Franco conquers
Madrid, ending the
Spanish Civil War*
March 28 - The last message from an adventurer
Richard Halliburton - he disappears later
* March - End of the
Great Arab Revolt in the
British mandate of Palestine (started
1936)
April
*
April 4 -
Faisal II becomes King of
Iraq.
*
April 7 -
Italy invades
Albania -
King Zog flees
*
April 9 - Singer
Marian Anderson performs before 75,000 people at the
Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. after having been denied the use both of
Constitution Hall by the
Daughters of the American Revolution and of a public high school by the federally-controlled
District of Columbia.
*
April 11 -
Hungary leaves the
League of Nations*
April 14 -
John Steinbeck's novel
The Grapes of Wrath is first published.
*
April 30 -
New York World's Fair opens.
May
*
May 2 -
Lou Gehrig's streak of 2130 consecutive
Major League Baseball games played comes to an end. The record will stand for 56 years before
Cal Ripken, Jr. breaks it.
*
May 3 - The
All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji
Subhash Chandra Bose.
*
May 7 -
Spain leaves the
League of Nations*
May 17 -
King George VI and
Queen Elizabeth of
Great Britain arrive in
Quebec City to begin the first-ever visit to
Canada by British sovereigns.
*
May 22 -
Germany and
Italy sign the
Pact of Steel.
*
May 29 -
Northamptonshire gains (over
Leicestershire at Northampton) their first victory for 99 matches, easily a record in the
County Championship. Their last Championship victory was as far back as
14 May 1935 over
Somerset at Taunton.
June
*
June 4 -
Holocaust: The
SS St. Louis, a ship carrying a cargo of 963
Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in
Florida after already having been turned away from
Cuba. Forced to return to
Europe, most of its passengers later die in
Nazi concentration camps.
*
June 12 - The
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is officially dedicated in
Cooperstown, New York.
*
June 17 - Last
public guillotining in France - murderer
Eugen Weidmann is decapitated by the
guillotine.
*
June 23 -
Turkey annexes
HatayJuly
|
German troops pull down the checkpoints on the German-Polish border, signalling the beginning of World War II |
*
July 4 -
Lou Gehrig gives his last public speech, following his diagnosis of
ALS. In it, he states, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
*
July 4 - The
concentration camp Neuengamme becomes autonomous.
*
July 6 -
Holocaust: The last remaining
Jewish enterprises in
Germany are closed.
*
July 26 - Australian Prime Minister
John Howard born in
Sydney,
Australia.
August
*
August 2 -
Albert Einstein writes President
Franklin Roosevelt about developing the
Atomic Bomb using
Uranium. This led to the creation of the
Manhattan Project.
*
August 17 -
The Wizard of Oz, starring
Judy Garland, premieres at the Capitol Theater in
New York City.
*
August 23 -
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:
Hitler and
Stalin agree to divide eastern Europe between themselves (
Finland, the
Baltic states and eastern
Poland to the
USSR; Western Poland to
Germany).
*
August 25 - An
IRA bomb explodes in the center of
Coventry,
England killing five people.
*
August 27 - A
Heinkel 178, the first jet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time.
*
August 30 -
Poland begins
mobilizationSeptember
*
September 1 -
World War II:
Polish September Campaign -
Nazi Germany attacks
Poland, beginning the
Second World War in
Europe.
*
September 2 - Following the invasion of Poland,
Danzig (now
Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed to Nazi Germany.
*
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 16 - Cease Fire ending undeclared
Border War between
The Soviet Union (and
Mongolian allies) and
Japan.
*
September 17 -
Soviet Union invades
Poland and then occupies eastern Polish territories.
*
September 27 -
Warsaw surrenders to
Germany;
Modlin surrenders day later; last Polish large operational unit surrenders near
Kock eight days later.
October
*
October 8 -
World War II:
Germany annexes Western Poland.
*
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 the
atomic bomb.
*
October 12 -
Jüri Uluots becomes prime minister of
Estonia.
*
October 15 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed
La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.
November
*
November 4 -
World War II: US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the
United States Customs Service to implement the
Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of
weapons by belligerents.
*
November 6 -
World War II:
Sonderaktion Krakau, the codename for a German action against scientists from the
University of Kraków and other
Kraków universities at the beginning of
World War II.
*
November 6 -
Hedda Hopper's Hollywood debuts with
Hollywood gossip columnist
Hedda Hopper as host (the show ran until
1951 and made Hopper a powerful figure in the Hollywood elite).
*
November 8 -
Venlo Incident: Two British agents of
SIS are captured by the Germans.
*
November 8 - In
Munich,
Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes an assassination attempt while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the
Beer Hall Putsch.
*
November 15 - In
Washington, DC, US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the
Jefferson Memorial.
*
November 16 -
Al Capone released from
Alcatraz*
November 30 -
Winter War begins:
Soviet forces attack
Finland and reach the
Mannerheim Line, starting the war.
December
*
December 2 -
La Guardia Airport opens for business in
New York City.
*
December 14 -
League of Nations expels the USSR because of attacking
Finland*
December 15 - The film version of
Gone With The Wind, starring
Vivien Leigh and
Clark Gable, premieres at Loew's Grand Theater in
Atlanta, Georgia.
*
December 25 -
A Christmas Carol was read before a radio audience for the first time.
*
December 26 - Mining strike in
Borinage,
Belgium*
December 27 -
Earthquake in Eastern
Anatolia,
Turkey, destroys the town of
Erzincan - about 30.000 dead.
Unknown dates
*
Batman created by
Bob Kane (and, unofficially,
Bill Finger).
*
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 (769 km²)
Ongoing events
*
Spanish Civil War (
1936-1939)
*
Sino-Japanese War (
1937-
1945)
January
*
January 2 -
Jim Bakker, American televangelist
*
January 3 -
Bobby Hull, Canadian hockey player
*
January 6 -
Valeri Lobanovsky, Ukrainian footballer and manager (d.
2002)
*
January 9 -
Malcolm Bricklin, American automotive pioneer
*
January 10 -
Sal Mineo, American actor (d.
1976)
*January 10 -
Bill Toomey, American athlete
*
January 11 -
Ann Heggtveit, Canadian skier
*
January 17 -
Maury Povich, American talk show host
*
January 18 -
James Gritz, U.S. Presidential candidate
*
January 19 -
Phil Everly, American musician
*
January 20 -
Chandra Wickramasinghe, British astronomer and poet
*
January 21 -
Wolfman Jack, American disk jockey and actor (d.
1995)
*
January 22 -
Ray Stevens, American musician
*
January 29 -
Germaine Greer, Australian writer
February
*
February 6 -
Mike Farrell, American actor
*
February 10 -
Adrienne Clarkson, 26th
Governor General of Canada*February 10 -
Roberta Flack, American singer
*February 10 -
Peter Purves, British actor and television presenter
*
February 12 -
Ray Manzarek, American keyboardist
*
February 13 -
Beate Klarsfeld, German-born Nazi hunter
*
February 20 -
Frank Arundel, English footballer
*
February 21 -
Gert Neuhaus, German artist
*
February 28 -
Daniel C. Tsui, Chinese-born physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate
*February 28 -
Tommy Tune, American dancer, choreographer, and actor
March
*
March 1 -
Leo Brouwer, Cuban composer and guitarist
*
March 8 -
Robert Tear, Welsh tenor
*
March 13 -
Neil Sedaka, American singer
*
March 17 -
Jim Gary, American sculptor (d.
2006)
*
March 20 -
Brian Mulroney, eighteenth
Prime Minister of Canada*
March 31 -
Zviad Gamsakhurdia,
President of Georgia (d.
1993)
* March 31 -
Volker Schlöndorff, German film director
April
*
April 2 -
Marvin Gaye, American singer (d.
1984)
*
April 4 -
Hugh Masakela, South African musician
*
April 7 -
Francis Ford Coppola, American film director
*April 7 - Sir
David Frost, English television personality
*
April 13 -
Seamus Heaney, Irish writer,
Nobel Prize laureate
*April 13 -
Paul Sorvino, American actor
*
April 15- Travis Peaster, American singer
*
April 16 -
Dusty Springfield, English singer (d.
1999)
*
April 22 -
Jason Miller, American playwright/actor (d.
2001)
May
*
May 1 -
Judy Collins, American singer and songwriter
*
May 7 -
Sidney Altman, Canadian-born chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate
*May 7 -
Ruud Lubbers,
Prime Minister of the Netherlands*May 7 -
Jimmy Ruffin, American singer
*May 7 -
Marco St. John, American actor
*
May 9 -
Ralph Boston, American athlete
*
May 12 -
Ron Ziegler,
Richard Nixon's White House Press Secretary (d.
2003)
*
May 13 -
Harvey Keitel, American actor
*
May 19 -
Livio Berruti, Italian athlete
*May 19 -
Dick Scobee, astronaut (d.
1986)
*
May 21 -
Heinz Holliger, Swiss oboist and composer
*
May 23 -
Reinhard Hauff, German film director
*
May 29 -
Al Unser, American race car driver
*
May 30 -
Michael J. Pollard, American actor
June
*
June 1 -
Cleavon Little, American actor (d.
1992)
*
June 3 -
Ian Hunter, English singer (
Mott the Hoople)
*
June 6 -
Louis Andriessen, Dutch composer
*
June 9 -
Ileana Cotrubaş, Romanian soprano
*
June 9 -
Dick Vitale, American basketball broadcaster
*
June 11 -
Jackie Stewart, Scottish race car driver
*
June 15 -
Brian Jacques, British writer
*
June 16 -
Richard Spendlove, MBE. Radio Presenter.Producer/TV Scriptwriter
July
*
July 5 -
Booker Edgerson, American football player
*
July 14 -
George E. Slusser, American scholar and writer
*
July 17 -
Milva, Italian singer and theatre actress.
*
July 21 -
John Negroponte, U.S.
Director of National Intelligence*
July 26 -
John Howard, twenty-fifth
Prime Minister of Australia*
July 26 -
Bob Lilly, American football player
*
July 27 -
Michael Longley, Northern Irish poet
August
*
August 5 -
Princess Irene of the Netherlands*
August 17 -
Luther Allison, American musician (d.
1997)
*
August 22 -
Carl Yastrzemski, baseball player
*
August 29 -
Joel Schumacher, American film producer and director
*
August 30 -
John Peel, English disk jockey (d.
2004)
September
*
September 6 -
Brigid Berlin, American actor and artist
*
September 6 -
David Allan Coe, Outlaw country musician
*
September 8 -
Carsten Keller, German field hockey player
*
September 8 -
Susumu Tonegawa, Japanese moleular biologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine*
September 9 -
Ron McDole, American football player
*
September 13 -
Richard Kiel, American actor
*
September 16 -
Breyten Breytenbach, South African writer and painter
*
September 18 -
Frankie Avalon, American musician
*
September 23 -
Janusz Gajos, Polish actor
*
September 30 -
Len Cariou, Canadian actor and singer
*
September 30 -
Jean-Marie Lehn, French chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate
October
*
October 1 -
George Archer, American golfer (d.
2005)
*
October 7 -
John Hopcroft, American computer scientist
*
October 7 -
Harold Kroto, English chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate
*
October 7 -
Bill Snyder, American football coach
*
October 11 -
Austin Currie, Northern Irish politician
*
October 13 -
T. J. Cloutier, American poker player
*
October 18 -
Flavio Cotti, member of the Swiss Federal Council
*
October 14 -
Ralph Lauren, American fashion designer
*
October 24 -
F. Murray Abraham, American actor
*
October 27 -
John Cleese, British actor
*
October 30 -
Leland H. Hartwell, American scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine*October 30 -
Grace Slick, American singer (
Jefferson Airplane,
Jefferson Starship, and
Starship)
*
October 31 -
Ron Rifkin, American actor
November
*
November 1 -
Barbara Bosson, American actress
*
November 6 -
Athanasios Angelopoulos, Greek academic
*
November 16 -
Michael Billington the drama critic for
The Guardian*
November 21 -
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Indian politician
*
November 23 -
Bill Bissett, Canadian poet
*
November 26 -
Tina Turner, Singer
*
November 27 -
Laurent-Désiré Kabila,
President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (d.
2001)
December
*
December 1 -
Dianne Lennon, American singer,
The Lennon Sisters*
December 2 -
Yael Dayan, Israeli writer and politician
*
December 8 - Sir
James Galway, Irish flutist
*
December 13 -
Eric Flynn, British actor and singer (d.
2002)
*
December 18 -
Alex Bennett, Radio Broadcaster, born Bennett Gordon Schwarzmann
*
December 18 -
Robert T. Bennett, American politician
*
December 18 -
Michael Moorcock, English writer
*
December 18 -
Harold E. Varmus, American scientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineJanuary-March
*
January 2 -
Roman Dmowski, Polish politician (b.
1864)
*
January 9 -
Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist and children's book writer (b.
1880)
*
January 23 -
Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer (b.
1903)
*
January 24 -
Maximilian Bircher-Benner, Swiss physician and nutritionist (b.
1867)
*
January 28 -
William Butler Yeats, Irish writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1865)
*
February 10 -
Pope Pius XI (b.
1857)
*
February 11 -
Franz Schmidt, Austrian composer (b.
1874)
*
February 12 -
S. P. L. Sørensen, Danish chemist (b.
1868)
*
February 22 -
Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (b.
1875)
*
March 2 -
Howard Carter, British archaeologist (b.
1874)
*
March 19 -
Lloyd L. Gaines, American civil rights activist
April-August
*
April 7 -
Joseph Lyons, tenth
Prime Minister of Australia (b.
1879)
*
June 4 -
Tommy Ladnier, American jazz trumpeter (b.
1900)
*
June 19 -
Grace Abbott, American social worker and activist (b.
1878)
*
June 26 -
Ford Maddox Ford, English writer (b.
1873)
*
July 14 -
Alfons Mucha, Czech painter and decorative artist (b.
1860)
*
August 2 -
Harvey Spencer Lewis, American mystic (b.
1883)
*
August 11 -
Jean Bugatti, German automobile designer (b.
1909)
October-December
*
September 6 -
Arthur Rackham, British artsit (b.
1867)
*
September 18 -
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer and painter (b.
1885)
*
September 23 -
Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (b.
1856)
*
October 7 -
Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (b.
1869)
*
November 12 -
Norman Bethune, Canadian humanitarian (b.
1890)
*
November 28 -
James Naismith, Canadian inventor of basketball (b.
1861)
*
November 29 -
Philipp Scheidemann,
Chancellor of Germany (b.
1865)
*
December 3 -
Princess Louise of the United Kingdom (b.
1848)
*
December 15 -
Reinhard Hetze, Argentinian religious pioneer (b.
1851)
*
December 23 -
Anthony Fokker, Dutch aircraft manufacturer (b.
1890)
*
Physics -
Ernest Orlando Lawrence*
Chemistry -
Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt,
Leopold Ruzicka*
Physiology or Medicine -
Gerhard Domagk*
Literature -
Frans Eemil Sillanpää*
Peace - not awarded
Polish mathematicians in 1939 created in Warsaw (Capital of Poland) a cryptological bomb, first machine to automatic decoding Enigma code. Operation of bomb has been made public in august 1939 and explain Employee of british interview.
*
1939 Coin Pictures
