The Year 1939 in Review: Fun Facts, Trivia, and Historic Highlights

This quick read is a collection of fun facts, trivia, and historic events from the year 1939. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, sports facts, a World War II timeline, entertainment trivia, and much more.

1. In 1939, President Roosevelt, World War II, and Lou Gehrig were all on center stage. Roast beef sandwiches and strawberry ice cream were crowd-pleasers, and Joseph and Joyce were popular baby names.
2. For a nickel, you could buy an ice cream cone, a bottle of Coke or Pepsi, a doughnut, or a cup of coffee. You could also buy a bag of loose tobacco for 10 cents, a pair of roller skates for 89 cents, or a Pontiac convertible for $900.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D-New York) was the president of the United States, and John Nance Garner (D-Texas) was the nation’s vice president.
4. The 75th United States Congress was in session until January 3, when the 76th U.S. Congress convened.
5. The U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, and the nation’s inflation rate was -1.42 percent.
6. The Great Depression (1929-39) was "the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world." PBS.org explains that during the Great Depression, "stock prices plummeted, 9,000 banks went out of business, 9 million savings accounts were wiped out, 86,000 businesses failed, and wages decreased by an average of 60 percent." Industries that struggled during the economic downturn included banking, construction, leather crafting, manufacturing (for example, automobiles and textiles), mining, ranching, and tenant farming (particularly in the Dust Bowl region).
7. In 1939, there were over 700 radio stations across the United States, and about 75 percent of American households owned a radio receiver. During a period of intense global unrest, Americans depended upon the airwaves for news, live musical performances, dramas, comedy acts, talk shows, educational programs, and live sports events.
8. January 1: Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard, an information technology company in Palo Alto, California. Later in the year, HP launched its first product, the HP 200A. The 200A, which was manufactured in David Packard's garage, was a "low-distortion audio oscillator used for testing sound equipment."
9. January 5: In 1937, Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, "mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigation flight." After a "wide-ranging . . . but fruitless search" that sparked both passion and controversy worldwide, Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939.
10. January 12: Publisher Martin Goodman founded Timely Comics, later known as Marvel Comics, in New York City.
11. January 15: At the first-ever NFL All-Star Game, the New York Giants defeated the All-American All-Stars, 13-10. The game was sponsored by the Los Angeles Times "as a charity game to benefit the Salvation Army." It was played at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles before a crowd of 15,000.
12. January 16: The daily newspaper comic strip, Superman, began a 27-year continuous run. At its peak, Superman appeared in over 300 daily newspapers and 90 Sunday papers and had a circulation of 20 million readers.
13. January 24: MLB players Eddie Collins, Willie Keeler, and George Sisler were elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
14. February 23: At the 11th Academy Awards, You Can't Take It with You won an Oscar for Best Picture, Frank Capra (You Can't Take It with You) won an Oscar for Best Director, and The Adventures of Robin Hood won an Oscar for Best Original Score.
15. March 7: Glamour magazine, a woman’s magazine originally called Glamour of Hollywood, began publishing in New York City. (Glamour’s last issue was in January 2019.)
16. On March 24, Los Angeles hosted the premiere of Wuthering Heights, a film based on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel.
17. March 25: Billboard magazine introduced the country music chart.
18. March 31: The Hound of the Baskervilles, the first of 14 films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, was released.
19. April 14: American author John Steinbeck published his ever-popular novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The book “chronicles the Joad family's migration from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.”
20. An estimated 44.9 million people visited the New York World's Fair, which took place from April 30 to October 26.
21. April 30: Lou Gehrig played his 2,130th consecutive and final game with the New York Yankees. (On June 2, 1941, Gehrig passed away from ALS at his home in the Bronx. He was 38 years old.)
22. May 1: Marjorie Rawlings received a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, The Yearling.
23. May 1: The superhero Batman first appeared in the 27th edition of the comic book Detective Comics.
24. In June, Barn Burning, one of William Faulkner's most popular short stories, first appeared in Harper's magazine (pages 86 to 96).
25. On June 6, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, hosted the first Little League baseball game.
26. June 7: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England began a five-day visit to the United States. At the White House, President Roosevelt served hot dogs to the royal couple. It was the first time that they had eaten the ever-popular American delicacy.
27. June 12: The National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum opened to the public in Cooperstown, New York. BaseballHall.org tells us that "The Hall of Fame has stood as the definitive repository of the game's treasures and as a symbol of the most profound honor bestowed on an athlete."
28. June 17: Eugene Weidmann, a German career criminal who had been convicted of multiple kidnappings and murders, became the last person to be publicly guillotined in France. Why? The "hysterical behavior" of spectators at the execution "was so scandalous that French President Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions."
29. July 15: Radio station WQXR began broadcasting in Newark, New Jersey.
30. August 9: Congress passed the Federal Seed Act, which "requires accurate labeling and purity standards for seeds in commerce and prohibits the importation and movement of adulterated or misbranded seeds."
31. August 15: The Wizard of Oz, a film starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, and Margaret Hamilton, opened at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Two days later, the film opened in New York City.
32. September 1: World War II officially began when Germany invaded Poland and attacked the city of Danzig. By September 10, Great Britain, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa had all declared war on Germany.
33. September 3: The German submarine, U-30, sank the SS Athenia, a British passenger ship. An estimated 117 people lost their lives, including 28 Americans.
34. September 3: After World War II erupted in Europe, President Roosevelt "quickly sought to reassure . . . the American public with one of his famous 'fireside chats.'" Speaking via radio to households across the USA on September 3, FDR declared American neutrality regarding the war abroad. (By 1940, however, public opinion in the U.S. would rapidly change from isolationism to the possibility of military intervention against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.)
35. September 11: The Mark Twain National Forest was established in Missouri.
36. September 24: Radio station WSWW began broadcasting in Charleston, West Virginia.
37. September 30: Author William Golding married chemist Ann Brookfield. (Golding's best-known literary work is the controversial novel Lord of the Flies, published in 1954.)
38. October 22: NBC became the first broadcasting network to televise a pro football game. Viewers from coast to coast watched the Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 23-14, at Ebbets Stadium in Brooklyn.
39. October 30: Radio station KFAR began broadcasting in Fairbanks, Alaska.
40. In November, Congress passed the final Neutrality Act, which "lifted the arms embargo and put all trade with belligerent nations under the terms of 'cash-and-carry.' The ban on loans remained in effect, and American ships were barred from transporting goods to belligerent ports."
41. November 6: Hedda Hopper's Hollywood premiered on CBS Radio and ran until 1951. Sponsored by Sunkist, the show soon became America's "go-to source" for the latest Hollywood gossip.
42. December 10: At the 7th NFL Championship Game, the Green Bay Packers defeated the New York Giants, 27-0. The game was played at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin, before a crowd of 32,379.
43. December 15: Gone with the Wind, a film starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, premiered in Atlanta. (In 1940, Gone with the Wind won an Oscar for Best Picture.)
44. In 1939, Representative Cleveland Sleeper of Maine proposed a bill that would have made it illegal to add tomatoes to clam chowder. Under the proposal, guilty offenders "would have to dig up a barrel of clams at high tide.”
45. The seedless watermelon was created.
46. The Girl Scouts introduced the ever-popular Thin Mint cookies, which were originally called "Cooky-Mints." Vox.com tells us that in the years that followed, Thin Mint cookies went by a "whole roster of minty names," including Chocolate Mint, Cookie Mint, and Thin Mints (plural).
47. Armour Star Treet first appeared on grocery store shelves.
48. Hershey's Miniatures were created.
49. Rolling Rock beer was launched by the Latrobe Brewing Company in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
50. National Presto Industries introduced the pressure cooker at the New York World's Fair.
51. The Frostie Beverage Company of Catonsville, Maryland, launched the ever-popular Frostie root beer.
52. DuPont began to manufacture nylon hosiery at its factory in Wilmington, Delaware. However, American women would not be able to purchase the nylon stockings until May 1940.
53. Paul Hermann Müller, a Swiss chemist, developed the insecticide DDT.
54. Pan American Airways introduced the first transatlantic passenger service between New York City and Lisbon, Portugal.
55. Supermarket pioneer A&P continued to consolidate thousands of its smaller grocery stores into larger supermarkets. Five or six smaller stores were often replaced with one large-scale supermarket that was more "appetizing" and consumer-friendly. The updated A&P supermarkets were visible across the USA, including one at 450 West 8th Street in Erie, PA, that has since become a Family Dollar store. (Until the 1930s, a typical A&P store had between 500 and 600 square feet. Today, the average supermarket has around 40,000 square feet.)
56. Construction was completed on Fallingwater, a house that was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Fallingwater, located in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, served as a weekend retreat for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann. Edgar Kaufmann founded the Kaufmann's department store chain in Pittsburgh, which later became Macy's. The flagship Kaufmann’s/Macy’s store in downtown Pittsburgh closed in 2016.
57. In 1939, John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was a best-selling fiction book, Fibber McGee & Molly was a beloved radio program, and Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow (from the film The Wizard of Oz) was a popular song.
58. Other best-selling fiction books for the year: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, All This, and Heaven Too by Rachel Field, and Disputed Passage by Lloyd C. Douglas
59. American author Ernest Vincent Wright wrote Gadsby, a 50,000-word novel that did not contain the letter "e."
60. Here are some more sports facts from 1939: The Green Bay Packers were the NFL champions, the Boston Bruins clinched the Stanley Cup, and the New York Yankees won the World Series. Ellison M. Brown won the 43rd Boston Marathon, Wilber Shaw won the 27th Indianapolis 500, and Johnstown was the winning horse in the 65th Kentucky Derby.
61. In 1939 as well, the words "Bloody Mary," "corn dog," "Disneyesque," "flight recorder," "foam rubber," "hardcover," "jukebox," "Little League," "median strip," "monounsaturated," "polio virus," "sound barrier," "video camera," "walkie-talkie," "wonder drug," and "world-class" all appeared in print for the first time.

References:

1. https://popculturemadness.com/1939-fun-facts-history-trivia/
2. https://www.infoplease.com/year/1939
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_in_the_United_States
4. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1939
5. https://www.savortoothtiger.com/recipes/great-depression-food
6. https://www.history.com/articles/great-depression-history
7. https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/depression-era-recipes/?sp-force-variant-cro=1
8. https://quaintcooking.com/2021/11/19/1939-thanksgiving-menu-the-main-course/
9. https://www.historic-newspapers.com/en-gb/blogs/article/a-year-in-history-1939-timeline
10. https://www.musicvf.com/songs.php?page=year&year=1939&tab=artistchartstab&sort=pointsup&filter=all#google_vignette&gsc.tab=0
11. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-history-1936.html
12. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1939
13. https://wwiifoundation.org/timeline-of-wwii/

Disclaimer: In writing and editing this article, Gregory DeVictor has made every effort to ensure historical accuracy and not to mislead his audience. In addition, the contents of this article, including text, graphics, and captions, are for general informational purposes only.

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor