1939
Events
January-June
July-September
October-November
December
unknown dates
Ongoing events
Year in topic
- 1939 in film
- 1939 in literature
- 1939 in music
- 1939 in rail transport
- 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
- April - television demonstrations are held at the World's Fair in New York and the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco
- 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
- May 17 - The first baseball game
(Princeton-Columbia) is broadcast on television, from Baker Field in New York. Bill Stern was the announcer
- June 1 - The first heavyweight boxing match is televised, Max Baer vs Lou Nova,
form Yankee Stadium.
- 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.
- September 1 - As World War II began, BBC television 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)
- The DuMont company begins producing consumer television sets
- September 30 - The first televised college football game, Fordham vs Waynesburg, at Randall's Island, New York.
- October 22 - The first NFL game is televised. The Brooklyn
Dodgers vs Philadelphia Eagles at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.
Births
January-February
- January 3 - Bobby Hull,
hockey player
- January 6 - Valeri Lobanovsky, football player and manager (d. 2002)
- January 10 - Sal Mineo,
actor (d. 1976)
- January 10 - Bill Toomey, track and field athlete
- January 11 - Ann
Heggtveit, world and 1960 Winter Olympics ski
champion
- January 17 - Maury
Povich, talk show host
- January 18 - James
Gritz, Green Beret, United States Populist Party Presidential candidate.
- January 19 - Phil
Everly, musician and singer
- January 21 - Wolfman
Jack, disk jockey, actor (d. 1995)
- January 22 - 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 28 - Erika Pluhar, actress and singer
- February 28 - Tommy Tune, dancer, choreographer, actor
March-April
- March 1 - Warren Davis,
The Monotones
- March 8 - Robert Tear, Welsh
tenor
- 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 31 - Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, scientist and writer, first President of the Republic of Georgia (d. 1993)
- March 31 - Volker Schlöndorff, film director
- April 2 - Marvin Gaye, singer
(d. 1984)
- April 4 - Hugh Masakela, musician
- April 7 - Francis Ford Coppola, American film
director
- April 7 - Sir David Frost, broadcaster, television host
- April 13 - Paul Sorvino,
actor
May
- 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 - Livio Berruti,
Italian athlete
- May 19 - Dick Scobee, astronaut (d. 1986)
- May 23 - Reinhard Hauff,
film director
- May 25 - Ian McKellen,
actor
- May 29 - Al Unser, race car
driver
- May 30 - Michael J.
Pollard, actor
June
July
August
September-December
- September 6 - Brigid
Berlin actor and artist
- September 9 - Ron
McDole, American football player
- September 16 - Breyten Breytenbach, South African poet, writer
and painter
- September 23 - Janusz
Gajos, Polish actor
- September 30 - Len
Cariou, Tony Award winning stage actor/singer
- October 7 - John
Hopcroft, American theoretical computer scientist
- October 14 - Ralph
Lauren, American fashion designer
- October 24 - F.
Murray Abraham, actor
- October 31 - Ron Rifkin,
actor
- November 21 - Mulayam Singh Yadav, politician, India
- November 23 - Bill
Bissett, Canadian anti-conventional poet
- December 8 - James
Galway, Irish flutist
- 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. Sørensen, Danish chemist
- March 19 - Lloyd L.
Gaines, American civil rights activist
- April 7 - Joseph Lyons,
tenth Prime Minister of Australia
- June 4 - Tommy Ladnier,
jazz musician (b. 1900)
- June 17 - Eugen
Weidmann, last public guillotine execution in France
- June 19 - Grace Abbott,
social worker, activist (b. 1878)
- August 2 - Harvey Spencer Lewis, F.R.C., Rosicrucian mysticist and Imperator of AMORC
- August 11 - Jean
Bugatti, automobile designer
- September 18 - Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (a.k.a. “Witkacy”), Polish writer and painter (b. 1885)
- October 7 - Harvey
Cushing, American neurosurgeon (b. 1869)
- November 12 - Norman Bethune, Canadian humanitarian
- November 28 - James
Naismith, inventor of basketball
- December 3 - Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria
- December 22 - Ma Rainey,
blues singer (b. 1886)
- December 23 - Anthony Fokker, aircraft manufacturer
Heads of state in 1939
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