1939

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Centuries:	[[19Template:Ordinal/th century]] - [[20Template:Ordinal/th century]] - [[21Template:Ordinal/th century]]
Decades:	1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
Years:	1936 1937 1938 - 1939 - 1940 1941 1942

Template:C20YearInTopicX Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. Template:C20YearTOC

[edit] Events of 1939

(Below, many events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.)

[edit] January

January 1
- The Hewlett-Packard Company is founded.
- Texas A&M wins their only football national championship
January 2 - End of term for Frank Finley Merriam, 28th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Culbert Levy Olson.
January 6 - Naturwissenschaften publishes evidence that nuclear fission has been achieved by Otto Hahn.
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.

[edit] February

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February 21: Golden Gate International Exposition opens.

February 1 - Martensville, Saskatchewan is founded.
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.
- Borley Rectory burns.
- 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.

[edit] March

March - End of the Great Arab Revolt in the British mandate of Palestine (started 1936).
March 2 - Pope Pius XII (Cardinal Pacelli) succeeds Pope Pius XI as the 260th pope.
March 3
- In Bombay, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in India.
- Students at Harvard University demonstrate the new tradition of swallowing gold fish to reporters.
March 13 - Hitler advises Jozef Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence in order to prevent its partition by Hungary and Poland.
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. The Ruthenian region of Czechoslavakia declares independences as Carpatho-Ukraine.
March 16 - Marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. Hungary invades Carpatho-Ukraine; final resistance ends on March 18.
March 22 - Germany takes Memel from Lithuania
March 23 - Slovak-Hungarian War begins.
March 25 - The second cartoon to feature Happy Rabbit, Prest-O Change-O, is released.
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.
- The last message from adventurer Richard Halliburton - he disappears later.

[edit] April

April 1 - Spanish Civil War comes to an end when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.
April 4 - Faisal II becomes King of Iraq. Slovak-Hungarian War ends with Slovakia ceding eastern territories to Hungary.
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 27 - Ely Racecourse closes.
April 30 - New York World's Fair opens.

[edit] May

May - Batman, created by Bob Kane (and, unofficially, Bill Finger), makes his first appearance.
May 2 - Major League Baseball's Lou Gehrig, the legendary Yankee first baseman known as "The Iron Horse", ends his 2130 consecutive games played streak after contracting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The record will stand for 56 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. plays 2131 consecutive games.
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 arrive in Quebec City to begin the first-ever visit to Canada by British sovereigns.
May 20 - Pan-American Airways begins trans-Atlantic mail service with the inaugural flight of its Yankee Clipper from Port Washington, New York.
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.

[edit] June

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June 24: Siam is renamed "Thailand"

June 4 - Holocaust: The SS St. Louis, a ship carrying a cargo of 907 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 Hatay.
June 24 - Government of Siam changes its name to Thailand, which means 'Free Land'.^[1]

[edit] July

July 2 - The 1st World Science Fiction Convention opens in New York City.
July 4
- Lou Gehrig gives his last public speech, following his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In it, he states, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
- The concentration camp Neuengamme becomes autonomous.
July 6 - Holocaust: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed.

[edit] 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 15 - MGM's musical classic film The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr, premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
August 23 - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Hitler and Stalin agree to divide Europe between themselves (Finland, Estonia, Latvia and eastern Poland to the USSR; Lithuania and western Poland to Germany).so they would not have to fight on two fronts.
August 25 - An IRA bomb explodes in the center of Coventry, England killing five people.
August 26 - The Kriegsmarine orders all German flagged merchant ships to head to German ports immediately in anticipation of the Invasion of Poland.
August 27 - A Heinkel 178, the first turbojet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time with Captain Erich Warsitz in command.
August 30 - Poland begins mobilization.

[edit] September

September 1 - WWII: Nazi Germany invades Poland, beginning the Second World War in Europe.'
September 1 - German navy fires on Danzig.
September 1 - Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland declare their neutrality.
September 2 - Following the invasion of Poland, Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed to Nazi Germany.
September 2 - Spain and Ireland declare their neutrality.
September 3 - WWII: United Kingdom, France, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany.
September 4 - WWII: Nepal declares war on Germany.
September 5 - WWII: The United States declares its neutrality in the war.
September 6 - WWII: South Africa declares war on Germany.
September 10 - Canada declares war on Germany.
September 16 - Ceasefire 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.

[edit] October

October 8 - WWII: 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 14 - German U-Boat U-47 sinks British battleship HMS Royal Oak.
October 15 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.
October 24 - Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time anywhere in Wilmington, Delaware.
October 25 - The Time of Your Life, a drama by William Saroyan, debuts in New York City.

[edit] November

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November 6: Hedda Hopper

November 4 - WWII: 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 to non-belligerent nations.
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).
- WWII: 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 8
- Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.
- In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Georg Elser 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.
November 30 - Sweden declares non-warfaring (not neutral) in the Winter War.

[edit] December

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December 15: Gone with the Wind premieres.

December 2 - La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City.
December 13 - WWII - Battle of the River Plate: German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee trapped by cruisers HMS Ajax, HMNZS Achilles, and HMS Exeter after a running battle off the coast of Uruguay. Admiral Graf Spee is scuttled by its crew off Montevideo harbor on December 17.
December 14 - League of Nations expels the USSR for attacking Finland.
December 15 - The film Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard, premieres at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.
December 26 - Mining strike in Borinage, Belgium
December 27 - Earthquake in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey, destroys the town of Erzincan - about 30,000 dead.

[edit] Undated

Kirlian photography is invented by Semyon Kirlian.
A logging crew sets off a second forest fire in the Tillamook Burn, which destroys 190,000 acres (769 km²).
Sandia View Academy, a private Adventist school, is founded in Corrales, New Mexico.

[edit] Ongoing

Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
The Great Depression (1929-The Late 1930s, early 1940s).
World War II (1939-1945).

[edit] Fictional

The following are references to year 1939 in fiction:

All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) - Takes place in 1939 New Orleans
According to "The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror" theme park attraction and the derivative 1997 television movie Tower of Terror, it was on October 31, 1939 that five unfortunate souls aboard an elevator at the fictional Hollywood Tower Hotel were cast into the Twilight Zone when the tower was struck by lightning. Since this event, the hotel has been abandoned and apparently cursed.