1939 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1939?
- January 26, 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy take Barcelona.
- January 27, 1939 – First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
- February 19, 1939 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Earth Rabbit in Chinese astrology.
- February 27, 1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners’ rights and are therefore illegal.
- March 2, 1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
- April 14, 1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press.
- May 17, 1939 – The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the United States’ first televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City.
- May 22, 1939 – World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
- June 4, 1939 – Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
- August 2, 1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear weapon.
- August 15, 1939 – 13 Stukas dive into the ground during a disastrous air-practice at Neuhammer. There are no survivors.
- September 1, 1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people.
- September 10, 1939 – World War II: Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining the Allies – France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.
- September 14, 1939 – World War II: The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine ship ORP in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify the annexation of Estonia.
- September 30, 1939 – General Władysław Sikorski becomes commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.
- November 15, 1939 – In Washington, D.C., US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
- November 26, 1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.
- December 2, 1939 – New York City’s La Guardia Airport opens.
- December 13, 1939 – World War II: Battle of the River Plate – Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German Deutschland class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.
- December 27, 1939 – Erzincan, Turkey is hit by an earthquake, killing 30,000.
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