Jump on our Virtual Newsstand as we journey back to 1939. See and read the comic books on sale month by month, and find out the major news of the day.

January: Amelia Earhart officially declared dead after disappearing whilst flying over the Pacific Ocean.

February: Stagecoach, directed by John Ford premieres. It will make John Wayne a global superstar.

March: Cardinal Pacelli succeeds Pope Pius XI as the 260th pope. As Pope Pius XII, he is the last to take the name Pius.

April: African-American singer Marian Anderson performs before 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial.

May: Lou Gehrig ("The Iron Horse") ends a 2,130 consecutive games played streak after contracting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

June: St. Louis carrying 907 Jewish refugees denied permission to land in Florida. Many of its passengers will die in Nazi death camps.

July: Theodore Roosevelt is the last of the four Presidents to have his head dedicated at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

August: MGM's classic musical The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

September: World War II begins after Nazi Germany invades Poland. United Kingdom, France, New Zealand & Australia declare war.

October: The ageing HMS Royal Oak is torpedoed & sunk by a German submarine. The crew death toll will eventually reach 833.

November: Hedda Hopper's Hollywood debuts on radio, making the gossip columnist a powerful Hollywood figure. It runs until 1951.

December: The lengthy film Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland & Leslie Howard, premieres.