Timeline November 1939

Events in November 1939 8

• 1861 – 1939 James Naismith (1861-1939) Died 28 November 1939, aged 78 Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator who invented basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. He later founded the basketball programme at the University of Kansas. He lived to see the sport played at the 1936 Olympics.
• 1939 Roald Dahl joins the Royal Air Force Nairobi - accepted with sixteen others, of whom three survived the war After a 600-mile drive from Dar es Salaam he was taken on for flight training.
• 1939 Neutrality Act of 1939 The US allows arms sales on a cash-and-carry basis Congress lifted the arms embargo on nations at war. Belligerents could now buy American weapons if they paid cash and carried the goods on their own ships. The change favoured Britain and France.
• 1939 Georg Elser's bomb attempt on Hitler A time bomb explodes in Munich's Bürgerbräukeller The carpenter Georg Elser hid a time bomb in a pillar of the beer hall where Hitler gave his annual speech. Hitler left early, and the explosion 13 minutes later killed eight people. Elser was arrested while trying to cross into Switzerland.
• 1939 – 2023 Tina Turner Queen of Rock 'n' Roll American-born singer, songwriter and actress widely known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. She rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, then rebuilt her career as a solo artist in her forties with the landmark album Private Dancer (1984). She won twelve Grammy Awards, sold over 100 million records worldwide, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice.
• 1939 Tina Turner born in Tennessee Born Anna Mae Bullock in Brownsville, Tennessee, and raised in Nutbush. Grew up singing in the Spring Hill Baptist Church choir.
• 1939 – 2001 Laurent-Désiré Kabila (1939-2001) Died 16 January 2001, aged 61 Kabila seized power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997 after ousting Mobutu Sese Seko, then fought a war against his former Rwandan and Ugandan backers. He was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in the presidential palace in Kinshasa. His son Joseph Kabila succeeded him.
• 1939 Soviet Union invades Finland Winter War begins The Soviet Union invaded Finland on November 30, 1939, beginning the Winter War. Finland resisted fiercely for over three months before ceding 11% of its territory in March 1940.