* 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.

* 1939 – James Burton, American guitarist ( TCB Band )

Destry Rides Again ( AKA The Man from Montana ) ( 1939 ) is a western starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart.

* 1939 – Sir James Galway, Northern Irish flautist

The first practical electron microscope was constructed in 1938, at the University of Toronto, by Eli Franklin Burton and students Cecil Hall, James Hillier, and Albert Prebus ; and Siemens produced the first commercial transmission electron microscope ( TEM ) in 1939.

Taking a back seat to James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties ( 1939 )

Seeing the Unseen by Ultra High-Speed Photography ( 1939, with James R. Killian Jr .).

* William James Mayo ( 1861 – 1939 ), co-founder of the Mayo Clinic

Then in 1939 James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake appeared.

* 1861 – James Naismith, Canadian inventor of basketball ( d. 1939 )

* 1983 – James Booker, American jazz singer ( b. 1939 )

* 1939 – Clive James, Australian television presenter and writer

The first novel that Heinlein wrote, For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs ( 1939 ), did not see print during his lifetime, but Robert James tracked down the manuscript and it was published in 2003.

* November 6 – James Naismith, Canadian inventor of basketball ( d. 1939 )

The first edition was published in 1939, set and printed in Great Britain by William Brendon & Son, Ltd., at the Mayflower Press, Plymouth, in Walbaum type, twelve point, leaded, on a toned opaque-wove paper made by John Dickinson, and bound by James Burn.

In 1939, Lombard took roles opposite James Stewart in producer David O. Selznick's Made for Each Other ( 1939 ) and Cary Grant in In Name Only ( 1939 ).

The rhyme has also been used as a reference in more serious literary works, including as a recurring motif of the Fall of Man in James Joyce's 1939 novel Finnegans Wake.

This was followed by the title role in Young Mr. Lincoln ( 1939 ), his first collaboration with director John Ford, and that year he played Frank James in Jesse James ( 1939 ).

In February 1939, the St. James Conference convened in London, but the Arab delegation refused to formally meet with its Jewish counterpart or to recognize them.

* James Harry Covington ( 1863 – 1939 ), American jurist and politician