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: Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel

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.

Art and culture

• April 30 – The 1939 New York World's Fair opens.

Visual art

• The Enigma of Hitler by Salvador Dalí

Music

• Mbube 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

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, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayis (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
• 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

Deaths

• Havelock Ellis
• Sigmund Freud
• Jack Kahane