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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Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

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 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