* 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.

Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE ( born 12 April 1939 ) is a prolific English playwright.

In 1939 Holt's mentor Robert Menzies became Prime Minister after the sudden death of the incumbent Joseph Lyons and the short-term caretaker ministry of Sir Earle Page.

Sir Harold ( Harry ) Walter Kroto, FRS ( born 7 October 1939 as Harold Walter Krotoschiner ), is a British chemist and one of the three recipients to share the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley.

As part of the fierce diplomatic competition in Ankara in the spring and summer of 1939 between von Papen on the one hand, and on the other the French Ambassador, René Massigli, and the British Ambassador, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, to win the allegiance of Turkey to either the Axis or the Allies, Ribbentrop suffered a major reversal in July 1939 when Massigli was able to arrange for major French arms shipments to Turkey on credit, to replace the weapons the Germans refused to deliver to the Turks.

On the night of 30 – 31 August 1939, Ribbentrop had an extremely heated exchange with the British Ambassador, Sir Nevile Henderson, who objected to Ribbentrop's demand, given at about midnight, that if a Polish plenipotentiary did not arrive in Berlin that night to discuss the German " final offer ", then the responsibility for the outbreak of war would not rest on the Reich.

Sir Earle Page Prime Minister of Australia 1939.

In 1939, Australian scientist Howard Florey ( later Baron Florey ) and a team of researchers ( Ernst Boris Chain, Arthur Duncan Gardner, Norman Heatley, M. Jennings, J. Orr-Ewing and G. Sanders ) at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford made significant progress in showing the in vivo bactericidal action of penicillin.

* When Joseph Lyons, prime minister and leader of the United Australia Party ( UAP ), died suddenly in April 1939, the governor-general, Lord Gowrie, called on Sir Earle Page to become caretaker prime minister.

< tr bgcolor ="# DDEEFF ">< td > 25 < td > Sir Bertram Stevens < td > United Australia < td > 16 May 1932 < td > 4 August 1939

Menzies ' first term as Prime Minister commenced in 1939, after the death in office of the United Australia Party leader Joseph Lyons and a short-term interim premiership by Sir Earle Page.

He was saved by being appointed research assistant to Sir Lawrence Bragg, under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, on 1 January 1939.

* Sir Harry Oakes, 1st Baronet, of Nassau, in the Bahama Islands ( 1939 ), extant

* Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, 1st Baronet, of Kensington Gore ( 1890 ), extinct 1939

* Battersea Power Station an iconic edifice designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, built between 1929 and 1939 ( featured, with flying pig, on the sleeve art of Pink Floyd's album Animals ).

One of his most notable roles was Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film The Hound of the Baskervilles.

( He was the only prime minister to be knighted during his term of office until Robert Menzies in 1963 ; various others were knighted after leaving the office ; Sir Earle Page was already a knight when he briefly became prime minister in 1939.

Sir Thomas Beecham conducted the opening concert on 20 June 1939.

In 1939 he played Sir Richard Vernon in Evans ' Henry IV, Part 1.

* 1923 – 1939: Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, KCB

* 1939 – 1952: Major General Sir Stewart Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC

* Sir George Reid ( Scottish politician ) ( born 1939 ), Former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament

* January – July 1939: Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, KCB, CMG, MC

* July 1939 – 1941: Lieutenant-General ( Local General ) Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, KCB, CMG, MC