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December 27, 1939

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Headlines from December 27, 1939

HENRY L. DOHERTY, OIL MAN, DIES AT 69; Organized the Cities Service Company in 1910 and Served Since as Its President Planned Roosevelt Birthday Balls HENRY L. DOHERTY, OIL MAN, DIES, 69 Began Career as Newsboy Lived in Financial District. His Florida Enterprizes His Spectacular Fight in Toledo. Quit School at 10 Years. Sufferer From Rheumatism. Oil Business Basically Wrong." Drift Toward Unit Drilling. Admired F.D. Roosevelt.

By Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Notable Births

John Amos

1939John Amos, American actor (died 2024)[†]

John Allen Amos Jr. was an American actor. He was best known for his role as James Evans Sr. on the CBS television series Good Times. His other well known roles were as the adult Kunta Kinte in the landmark miniseries Roots and for portraying Captain Meissner in Lock Up (1989) and Major Grant in Die Hard 2 (1990). His other television work includes The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on The West Wing, and the role of the Mayor of Washington DC Ethan Baker in the series The District. Amos was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and an NAACP Image Award. In film, he played numerous supporting roles in movies such as The Beastmaster (1982), Coming to America (1988), and Coming 2 America (2021).

Notable Deaths

Rinaldo Cuneo

1939Rinaldo Cuneo, American painter (born 1877)[†]

Rinaldo Cuneo, was an American artist known for his landscape paintings and murals. He was dubbed "the Painter of San Francisco".

Historical Events

1939The 7.8 Mw  Erzincan earthquake shakes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). At least 32,700 people were killed.[†]

An earthquake struck Turkey's eastern Erzincan Province at 1:57:23 a.m. on 27 December 1939 local time with a moment magnitude (Mw ) of 7.8 and maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). It is tied with the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes as the most powerful earthquake in Turkey to be recorded by instruments. However, it was less powerful than estimates of the 1668 North Anatolia earthquake. This was one of the largest in a sequence of violent shocks to affect Turkey along the North Anatolian Fault between 1939 and 1999. Surface rupturing, with a horizontal displacement of up to 3.7 meters, occurred in a 360 km long segment of the North Anatolian Fault Zone. The earthquake was the most severe natural loss of life in Turkey in the 20th century, with 32,968 dead, and some 100,000 injured.

Winter War

1939Winter War: Finland holds off a Soviet attack in the Battle of Kelja.[†]

The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization.