John MacDonald Badham is an American film and television director, best known for directing the films Saturday Night Fever (1977), Dracula (1979), Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), Short Circuit (1986), Stakeout (1987), Bird on a Wire (1990), The Hard Way (1991), Point of No Return (1993), Drop Zone (1994), and Nick of Time (1995). He is a two-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee, a two-time Hugo Award nominee, and a Saturn Award winner. He is also a Professor at Chapman University.

1939Marshall Brickman, Brazilian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2024)^[†]

Marshall Jacob Brickman was an American screenwriter and director, best known for his collaborations with Woody Allen, with whom he shared the 1977 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Annie Hall. He was previously the head writer for Johnny Carson, writing scripts for recurring characters such as Carnac the Magnificent. He is also known for playing the mandolin and banjo with Eric Weissberg in the 1960s, and for a series of comical parodies published in The New Yorker.

Notable Deaths

1939Babe Siebert, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1904)^[†]

Charles Albert "Babe" Siebert was a Canadian professional ice hockey left winger and defenceman who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Montreal Maroons, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens. He won the 1926 Stanley Cup championship with the Maroons, and was a member of the famous "S Line", and another with the Rangers in 1933.

Historical Events

1939The Irish Republican Army carries out the 1939 Coventry bombing in which five civilians were killed.^[†]

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperialism through Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British colonial rule.

1939The United Kingdom and Poland form a military alliance in which the UK promises to defend Poland in case of invasion by a foreign power.^[†]

The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I. The Second Republic was taken over in 1939, after it was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of the European theatre of the Second World War. The Polish government-in-exile was established in Paris and later London after the fall of France in 1940.