WHAT ALL HAPPENED MARCH TO SEPTEMBER 1939
Find out what all happened March to September 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. (30. April 1939)

The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York. (12. June 1939)

World War II: The Battle of Hel begins, the longest-defended pocket of Polish Army resistance during the German invasion of Poland. (9. September 1939)

First flight of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber airplane. (1. June 1939)

Spanish Civil War: Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender. (1. April 1939)

Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps. (4. June 1939)

Marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. (16. March 1939)

World War II: The Battle of Barking Creek. (6. September 1939)

The United Kingdom and Poland form a military alliance in which the UK promises to defend Poland in case of invasion by a foreign power. (25. August 1939)

Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people. (1. September 1939)

Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considered himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball. (4. July 1939)

World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel. (22. May 1939)

The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press. (14. April 1939)

Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead. (6. June 1939)

The 1939-40 New York World's Fair opens. (30. April 1939)

First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft. (27. August 1939)

World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland during the Polish Defensive War of 1939. (17. September 1939)

World War II: South Africa declares war on Germany. (6. September 1939)

World War II: A German U-boat U 29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous. (17. September 1939)

In Mumbai, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest at the autocratic rule in India. (3. March 1939)