Events Date 1939 November | History by KabAstro

Nov 1 First animal conceived by artificial insemination (rabbit) displayed
Nov 1 First jet plane, Heinkel He 178, demonstrated to German Air Ministry

Catholic Encyclical

Nov 1 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Sertum laetitiae

Nov 3 Clare Booth's "Margin for Error" premieres in NYC
Nov 4 First air conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited, Chicago, Illinois
Nov 4 US allows "cash & carry" arms sales during WW II

Shostakovich's 6th Symphony

Nov 5 Dmitri Shostakovich's 6th Symphony premieres in Leningrad

Nov 6 WGY-TV (Schenectady, NY), 1st commercial TV station, begins service
Nov 6 World War II: 'Sonderaktion Krakau' - a Nazi operation against academics, with 184 professors arrested in Kraków and deported
Nov 6 WRGB TV channel 6 in Schenectady-Alby-Troy, NY (CBS) 1st broadcast

Attempt on Hitler

Nov 8 Failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler at Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich, Germany; timebomb planted by workman Georg Elser explodes 13 minutes after Hitler's departure kills 8

Nov 8 Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse's stage comedy "Life with Father" opens at Empire Theatre, NYC, later transferring to the Bijou, and then the Alvin Theatre; runs for 3224 performances
Nov 9 Nobel Prize for physics awarded to American Ernest Lawrence for his invention of the cyclotron

Ninotchka

Nov 9 Romantic comedy film "Ninotchka" directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo premieres

Nov 9 Venlo-incident: German Abwehr kills 2 British agents

God Bless America

Nov 11 Kate Smith first sings Irving Berlin's "God Bless America"

Nov 12 Jews in Lodz, Poland, ordered to wear a yellow star of David
Nov 14 Oil refinery fire kills 500 & destroys Lagunillas, Venezuela
Nov 15 Anti-German demonstrations in Czechoslovakia

Jefferson Memorial

Nov 15 FDR lays cornerstone of Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Nov 15 Nazis begin mass murder of Warsaw Jews
Nov 15 The first unemployment compensation law, under the Social Security Act, that of the District of Columbia, was approved for grants by the Social Security Board

Capone Freed

Nov 16 Al Capone freed from Alcatraz jail

Nov 16 German U-boat torpedoes tanker Sliedrecht near Ireland
Nov 17 German U-boat torpedoes passenger ship

Very Warm for May

Nov 17 Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "Very Warm for May", featuring June Allyson, Eve Arden, and Vera-Ellen, and directed by Vincente Minnelli opens at the Alvin Theatre, NYC; runs for 59 performances, inspiring 9-year-old audience member Stephen Sondheim's love for musical theater

Nov 17 The Rome-Rio de Janeiro air connection created
Nov 18 Dutch KNSM passenger ship Simón Bolívar hits German mine, 86 die
Nov 18 The Irish Republican Army explodes three bombs in Piccadilly Circus
Nov 19 Comic superheroes Flash (as Jay Garrick) and Hawkman (Carter Hall) first appear in "Flash Comics No. 1" published by DC
Nov 19 Don Lash wins 6th straight AAU cross-country 10K championship

Harry Greenberg Killed

Nov 22 Bugsy Siegel, Whitey Krakower, Frankie Carbo and Albert Tannenbaum kill Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg outside his apartment after Greenberg had threatened to become a police informant