1939: Gone with the Wind premieres
1940: F. Scott Fitzgerald dies aged 44
1941: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
1942: Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
1943: The Great Depression officially ends in the U.S.
1944: Airplane carrying Glenn Miller disappears over English Channel
1945: General George Patton dies after an automobile accident
1946: It's a Wonderful Life produced & directed by Frank Capra is released
1947: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' opens on Broadway
1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N.
1949: Robert Menzies becomes Australian Prime Minister
1950: Dr. Ralph Bunche receives Nobel Peace Prize
1951: EBR-I becomes first electricity-generating nuclear power plant
1952: London suffers severe air pollution, causing many fatalities
1953: First issue of Playboy magazine published by Hugh Hefner
1954: U.S. Senate condemns McCarthy for 'conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor & disrepute'
1955: Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery Alabama for refusing to make room for a white passenger
1956: 82 fighters land in Cuba in the boat 'Granma'. They include Fidel & Raul Castro & Che Guevara
1957: Boeing 707 airliner makes maiden flight. Heralding a new chapter in commercial aviation
1958: Rebel troops under Che Guevara begin invasion of Santa Clara, Cuba
1959: 12 countries sign the Antarctic Treaty declaring Antarctica a scientific preserve
1960: The farthing is no longer legal tender in the United Kingdom
1961: An Israeli tribunal sentences Adolf Eichmann to die for his part in The Holocaust
1962: David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" featuring Peter O' Toole premieres
1963: The Dyna-Soar spaceplane program by the U.S.A.F cancelled just after construction begun