Читать книгу Gone With The Wind - Группа авторов - Страница 17

1939

JANUARY

JAN. 5

Aviator Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead. Her plane had disappeared in 1937.

JAN. 27:

Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a massive expansion of the German Navy. Hitler intends to build a fleet that can destroy the British Navy.

FEBRUARY

MARCH

MARCH 3:

The strange craze of goldfish swallowing reaches a high point when Time magazine devotes an article to Harvard’s Lothrop Withington, who swallowed a goldfish to win a $10 bet.

MARCH 28:

Dictator Francisco Franco assumes power in Spain. He rules Spain until 1975.

APRIL

APRIL 14:

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is published. It is the best-selling book of 1939.

MAY

MAY 1:

Batman makes his first appearance in a comic book. The May issue of Detective Comics sold for a dime.

MAY 2:

Lou Gehrig, baseball’s Iron Horse, sits out a game, ending his consecutive game streak at 2,130. In June he is diagnosed with ALS, and on July 4, he gives his famous farewell speech, calling himself “the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

JUNE

JUNE 1:

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. is officially dedicated. The plaque gallery is pictured below.

JULY

JULY 6:

The last remaining Jewish-owned businesses in Germany are closed by the Nazis.

AUGUST

AUG. 2:

Albert Einstein signs a letter written by Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd to President Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining that uranium may be used to create a nuclear bomb. Roosevelt immediately establishes a committee to investigate, paving the way for the Manhattan Project.

AUG. 15:

The Wizard of Oz premieres. Opening to almost as much fanfare as Gone With the Wind, MGM’s The Wizard of Oz cost a staggering (at the time) $2.7 million.

AUG. 19:

Adolf Hitler orders preparations for the invasion of Poland to begin in earnest.

AUG. 23:

Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, agreeing to divide Eastern Europe between the two powers. Both nations invade Poland in September with the intent of splitting the country along the lines that they agreed to in this treaty.

SEPTEMBER

SEPT. 1:

The first shots of World War II are fired when the German warship Schleswig-Holstein opens fire on the Polish fort Westerplatte.

OCTOBER

OCT. 17:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premieres. The Jimmy Stewart classic is another highlight in what many consider Hollywood’s finest year. Other noteworthy films from 1939 include Babes in Arms; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Gunga Din; Ninotchka and Stagecoach.

NOVEMBER

NOV. 15:

President Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

NOV. 16:

Al Capone is released from Alcatraz due to his poor health, the result of syphilis. Ravaged mentally and physically by the disease, he dies in his Florida mansion in 1947.

DECEMBER

DEC. 15:

Gone With the Wind premieres.