* 1939 – 1945, the Second Battle of the Atlantic.

Subsequent formalizations were framed as attempts to define " effective calculability " or " effective method "; those formalizations included the Gödel – Herbrand – Kleene recursive functions of 1930, 1934 and 1935, Alonzo Church's lambda calculus of 1936, Emil Post's " Formulation 1 " of 1936, and Alan Turing's Turing machines of 1936 – 7 and 1939.

* 1890 – Anthony Fokker, Dutch aviation engineer ( d. 1939 )

* 1939 – André Ouellet, French-Canadian politician

* 1852 – Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician ( d. 1939 )

* 1939 – Alan Ayckbourn, English writer

* 1939 – Johnny Raper, Australian rugby league footballer

* 1939 – The 1939-40 New York World's Fair opens.

* 1939 – NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N. Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address.

* 1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.

* 1939 – William Least Heat-Moon, American author

* 1939 – Edward Patten, American singer-songwriter and producer ( Gladys Knight & the Pips ) ( d. 2005 )

* 1939 – Bulle Ogier, French actress

* 1939 – Romano Prodi, Italian politician and statesman

* 1939 – Hércules Brito Ruas, Brazilian footballer

* 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.

* 1939 – Benjamin Barber, American theorist

* 1939 – Wes Craven, American director

* 1939 – John W. Snow, American politician, 73rd United States Secretary of the Treasury

* 1984 – Marvin Gaye, American singer ( The Moonglows ) ( b. 1939 )

* 2001 – Trinh Cong Son, Vietnamese composer ( b. 1939 )

Eastern European theorists include Pyotr Stolypin ( 1862 – 1911 ) and Alexander Chayanov ( 1888 – 1939 ) in Russia ; Adolph Wagner ( 1835 – 1917 ), and Karl Oldenberg in Germany, and Bolesław Limanowski ( 1835 – 1935 ) in Poland.

** Cleavon Little, American actor ( b. 1939 )

Cleavon Jake Little ( June 1, 1939 – October 22, 1992 ) was an American film and theatre actor.

* Little Brother Rat ( 1939 )

* Little Lion Hunter ( 1939 )

Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong ( 1933 ), Little Women ( 1933 ), Jezebel ( 1938 ), Casablanca ( 1942 ), and the film score for which he is possibly best known, Gone with the Wind ( 1939 ).

Agatha Christie's book Ten Little Niggers was first published in London in 1939 and continued to appear under that title until the early 1980s, when it became And Then There Were None.

In addition, Ten Little Niggers ( 1939 ) was the original British title of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None, which has also been known by the alternate title Ten Little Indians.

After leaving Universal he began a long collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn for whom he directed such classics as Dodsworth ( 1936 ), These Three ( 1936 ), Dead End ( 1937 ), Wuthering Heights ( 1939 ), The Westerner ( 1940 ), The Little Foxes ( 1941 ) and The Best Years of Our Lives ( 1946 ).

The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman.

Shirley Temple in The Little Princess ( 1939 film ) | The Little Princess, circa 1939.

* The Little Princess ( 1939 )

Several Silly Symphonies entries, including Three Little Pigs ( 1933 ), The Grasshopper and the Ants ( 1934 ), The Tortoise and the Hare ( 1934 ), The Country Cousin ( 1936 ), The Old Mill ( 1937 ), Wynken, Blynken, and Nod ( 1938 ), and The Ugly Duckling ( 1939, with an earlier black-and-white version from 1931 ), are among the most notable films produced by Walt Disney.

In the Marx Brothers ' movie At the Circus ( 1939 ), however, Harpo " speaks " in a movie with the brothers in the scene in which he visits the room of Little Professor Atom ( Jerry Maren ) and sneezes, clearly saying " At-choo !".

She made her stage debut in 1939 in the Little Revue.

" Swing the Mood " began with Glenn Miller's famous " In the Mood " ( a recording from 1939 ), followed immediately by rhythmic re-editing of Bill Haley and His Comets ' " Rock Around the Clock ", Little Richard's " Tutti Frutti " and the Everly Brothers ' " Wake Up, Little Susie ".

She and McCoy broke up in 1935, and by 1939 she was with Little Son Joe Lawlers.

Despite their intense mutual dislike, and fights over the screenplay, My Little Chickadee was a moderate box office success, but the film outgrossed Fields's previous film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man ( 1939 ), and the later The Bank Dick ( 1940 ).

Mercer also did the voices of Wimpy, Poopdeck Pappy, Popeye's nephews, King Little and the bumbling spies, Sneak, Snoop, and Snitch in Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels ( 1939 ), and a number of voices for Fleischer's Mister Bug Goes to Town ( 1941 ).

* Little Brother Rat ( 1939 )

* The Little Lion Hunter ( 1939 )