1939  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

The Trylon and Perisphere, two modernistic structures at the New York World's Fair of 1939-1940
Photo: Trylon, Perisphere and Helicline (Samuel H. Gottscho)

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1939 is the 939th year of the 2nd millennium, the 39th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1930s decade.

Events

• August 23 – World War II: Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union sign the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Art and culture

• April 30 – The 1939 New York World's Fair opens.

Visual art

• The Enigma of Hitler by Salvador Dalí

Music

• The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Solomon Linda
• Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller
• Perfidia by Xavier Cugat
• Harlem Nocturne Earle Hagen and Dick Rogers
• Aquarela do Brasil by Ary Barroso
• 'Tain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It) by Jimmie Lunceford

Film

• The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir

Literature

Fiction

• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
• A Journey Round My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy
• Party Going by Henry Green
• Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote by Jorge Luis Borges
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Non-fiction

• Avant-Garde and Kitsch by Clement Greenberg
• Manhood by Michel Leiris
• The Civilizing Process by Norbert Elias

Births

• Carlo Ginzburg
• Bertrand Blier
• Peter Bogdanovich
• Joel-Peter Witkin
• Gaetano Pesce

• January 29 – Germaine Greer, Australian feminist writer
• March 1 – Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher and critic (d. 2017)
• March 31 – Volker Schlöndorff, German film director
• April 4 – Hugh Masekela, South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and singer (d. 2018)
• April 7 – Francis Ford Coppola, American film director
• May 7 – Ruggero Deodato, Italian film director, actor and screen writer (d. 2022)
• May 10 – Robert Darnton, American cultural historian
• May 23 – Michel Colombier, French composer (d. 2004)
• June 21 – Charles Jencks, American cultural theorist (d. 2019)
• August 30 – John Peel, English disc jockey (d. 2004)
• October 12 –Carolee Schneemann, 79, American artist (d. 2019)
• November 14 – Wendy Carlos, American electronic composer
• December 5 – Ricardo Bofill, Spanish architect (d. 2022)

Deaths

• July 14 - Alphonse Mucha, Czech painter, decorative artist (b. 1860)
• September 6 – Arthur Rackham, British artist (b. 1867)
• September 22 – Frits Van den Berghe, Belgian painter (b. 1883)
• Havelock Ellis
• Sigmund Freud
• Jack Kahane