1939

Template:Year nav Template:C20YearInTopic Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full year calendar).

Events

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

January

January 1 - The Hewlett-Packard Company was founded.
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

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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
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 - 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.
March 3 - 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.
March 28 - The last message from adventurer Richard Halliburton - he disappears later.
March - End of the Great Arab Revolt in the British mandate of Palestine (started 1936)

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.

May

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 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 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.

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June 24: Siam is renamed "Thailand"

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'.<ref>

    "Thailand ( Siam ) History" (overview),
    CS Mngt, 2005, CSMngt.com webpage:
    CSMngt-Thai.

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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."
July 4 - The concentration camp Neuengamme becomes autonomous.
July 6 - Holocaust: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed.

August

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August 17: Wizard of Oz premieres in New York.

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 26 - The Kriegsmarine orders all German flaged merchant ships to head to German ports immediately in anticipation of the Invasion of Poland.
August 27 - A Heinkel 178, the first jet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time.
August 30 - Poland begins mobilization

September

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September 1: German troops pull down the checkpoints on the German-Polish border, signalling the start of World War II.

September 1 - WWII: Invasion of Poland - 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 - WWII: France, Australia and the United Kingdom 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 - 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 - 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 15 - The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed La Guardia Airport) is dedicated.
October 25 - The Time of Your Life, a drama by William Saroyan, debuts in New York City.

November

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 by belligerents.

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November 6: Hedda Hopper (Time issue 28-July-47)

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 6 - 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.