* 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.

Jorge Luis Borges's ( 1939 ) short story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, is often considered as predicting postmodernism and conceiving the ideal of the ultimate parody.

* April 18 – Pierre Desproges, French humorist ( b. 1939 )

Emir Rodríguez Monegal alleged that many of Derrida's ideas were recycled from the work of Borges ( from essays and tales such as " La fruición literaria " ( 1928 ), " Elementos de preceptiva " ( 1933 ), " Pierre Menard " ( 1939 ), " Tlön " ( 1940 ), " Kafka y sus precursores " ( 1951 )), opening his article with:

Prefect of Eure-et-Loir in 1939, Jean Moulin was subsequently a part of the Air Ministry of Pierre Cot.

Most famous Belgian authors are: Guido Gezelle ( 1830 – 1899 ), Emile Verhaeren ( 1855 – 1916 ), Max Elskamp ( 1862 – 1931 ), Maurice Maeterlinck ( 1862 – 1949 ), Paul van Ostaijen ( 1896 – 1926 ), Henri Michaux ( French born and educated in Belgium, 1899 – 1984 ) and Jacques Brel ( 1929 – 1978 ) and prose writers: Hendrik Conscience ( 1812 – 1883 ), Charles de Coster ( 1827 – 1879 ), Willem Elsschot ( 1882 – 1960 ), Michel de Ghelderode ( 1898 – 1962 ), Georges Simenon 1903-1989, Louis Paul Boon ( 1912 – 1979 ), Hugo Claus ( 1929 – 2008 ), Pierre Mertens ( born in 1939 ) Ernest Claes ( 1885 – 1968 ), and, Amélie Nothomb ( born in 1967 ).

The marque Facel Vega was created in 1954 by Jean Daninos ( brother of the humorist Pierre Daninos, who wrote Les Carnets du Major Thompson ), although the Facel company had been established by the Bonzavia Company in 1939 as a subcontracting company for the aviations industry.

* Pierre Boileau's Le Repos de Bacchus ( 1938 ) and Six crimes sans assassin ( 1939 )-which contains no less than 6 impossible murders

" During Mengelberg's time as chief conductor, several of these first conductors included Karl Muck ( 1921 – 1925 ), Pierre Monteux ( 1924 – 1934 ), Bruno Walter ( 1934 – 1939 ), and Eugen Jochum ( 1941 – 1943 ).

They were discovered intact in 1939 and 1940 by Pierre Montet and proved to contain a large catalogue of gold, jewelry, lapis lazuli and other precious stones including the funerary masks of these kings.

Picasso also introduced him to Pierre Loeb, a Parisian art dealer ; Loeb gave Lam his first exhibition at the Galerie Pierre Loeb in 1939, which received an enthusiastic response from critics.

The brother of the Pierre Daninos, Jean Daninos had founded the company FACEL ( Forges et Ateliers des Constructions d ' Eure-et-Loir, forge and construction workshop for the department of Eure-et-Loir ) in 1939 with hopes of one day designing and manufacturing his own automobile.

* Le Dernier Tournant ( The Last Turning ), a 1939 French film directed by Pierre Chenal and starring Michel Simon as Nick

* Pierre Desproges ( 1939 – 1988 ), humorist

Plantard added that his past relative, Abbé Pierre Plantard, former vicar of the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris, drew up genealogies giving the survival of the line of Dagobert II on 18 March 1939.

** Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote ( 1939 )

Howe worked as an art instructor at Pierre High School in 1939.

Pierre Wynants ( born 5 March 1939, in Brussels ) is a Belgian chef.

The French excavator, Pierre Montet discovered Osorkon II's plundered royal tomb at Tanis on February 27, 1939.

Pierre Bussières, ( born July 8, 1939 ) is a former Canadian politician.

* Bouchardon, Pierre, Vacher l ' éventreur, Albin Michel, 1939, 252 p.

Pierre Desproges ( May 9, 1939 – April 18, 1988 ) was a French humorist.

He had overseen the acquisition of the ( then bankrupt ) Citroën business in 1934: with his son Pierre and their friend Pierre-Jules Boulanger he secured its position as one of Europe's most innovative auto-makers in the 1940s and 1950s, producing models such as the Citroën Traction, the revolutionary Citroën TUB / TUC light van and the 2CV prepared for introduction at the 1939 Paris Motor Show ( which was cancelled at short notice, the war causing the launch of the little car to be deferred ).

His final resting place was discovered within Psusennes I's tomb at Tanis by Pierre Montet in 1939.