1939 in television

The year 1939 in television involved some significant events.
Below is a list of television-related events during 1939.

Events

March 4 – The BBC Television Service broadcasts one of the first television plays specially written for the medium, Condemned To Be Shot by R. E. J. Brooke, live from its London studios at Alexandra Palace. The production is notable for the use of a camera as the first-person perspective of the play's unseen main character.
March 27 – The BBC broadcasts the entirety of Magyar Melody live from His Majesty's Theatre in London. The 175-minute broadcast is the first showing of a full-length musical by television.
April
*Television demonstrations are held at the 1939 New York World's Fair on Long Island and the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco.
*RCA, General Electric, Dumont and others begin selling television sets to the public in the New York City area. Screen sizes typically range from 5 to 12 inches, and Dumont features 14-inch and 16-inch models. Prices start at $200 and go as high as $1000.
April 30 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, appearing at the opening ceremony of the 1939 New York World's Fair, becomes the first President of the United States to give a speech that is broadcast by television.
May 3 – The Walt Disney cartoon Donald's Cousin Gus airs on NBC's experimental station W2XBS in New York. This marks the first movie cartoon to be televised in the United States.
May 17 – The first baseball game to be televised is broadcast, from Baker Field in New York. Bill Stern is the announcer.
June 1 – The first heavyweight boxing match to be televised is broadcast, from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
August 26
*The first Major League Baseball game to be televised is broadcast, from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York.
*Poland broadcasts a feature film for the first time—Barbara Radziwiłłówna —using the experimental transmitter mounted atop the Prudential building in Warsaw.
August 31 – 18,999 television sets have been sold in England before manufacture stops due to World War II.
September 1 – The anticipated outbreak of World War II brings television broadcasting at the BBC in Britain to an end at 12:35 p.m. after the broadcast of a Mickey Mouse cartoon, Mickey's Gala Premier, various sound and vision test signals, and announcements by presenter Fay Cavendish. It is feared that the VHF waves of television would act as a homing signal for guiding enemy bombers to central London: in any case, the engineers of the television service would be needed for the war effort, particularly for development of radar. The BBC would resume its broadcasting, with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon, after the war in 1946.
September 30 – 1939 Waynesburg vs. Fordham football game: The first American football game to be televised is broadcast, from Randall's Island, New York.
October 22 – The first National Football League game to be televised is broadcast, from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.
November 8 – CBS television station W2XAB resumes test transmission with an all-electronic system broadcast from the top of the Chrysler Building in New York City. The station would eventually become WCBS-TV.
November 23 – The earliest known live telecast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is broadcast locally in New York.

Births

January 4 – Burt Sugarman, American film and television producer
January 9 – Susannah York, English actress
January 10 – Sal Mineo, American actor
January 17 – Maury Povich, American talk show host
January 22 – Jeff Smith, American chef and presenter
January 24 – Ray Stevens, American singer
February 2 – Jackie Burroughs, English-born Canadian actress
February 6 – Mike Farrell, American actor
February 9 – Janet Suzman, South African-born British actress
February 10 – Peter Purves, English actor and television presenter
February 25 – John Leonard, critic
March 5
*Samantha Eggar, English-born actress
*Michael A. Krauss, American television segment producer
March 9
*John Howard Davies, English child actor and comedy director
*Eugene Lee, American set designer
March 13 – Neil Sedaka, singer
March 14 – Raymond J. Barry, actor
March 21 – Kathleen Widdoes, actress
March 24 – Lynda Baron, English actress
March 31 – Israel Horovitz, actor
April 1 – Ali MacGraw, actress
April 2 – Marvin Gaye, singer
April 5 – Roger Davis, actor
April 7 – David Frost, English satirist and television presenter
April 9 – Michael Learned, actress
April 11 – Louise Lasser, actress
April 13 – Paul Sorvino, actor
April 19 – Ellen Weston, actress
April 23
*David Birney, actor
*Lee Majors, actor
April 27 – Judy Carne, English actress and comedian
May 1
*Mark Slade, American actor
*Max Robinson, African American journalist
May 13 – Harvey Keitel, actor
May 25 – Dixie Carter, actress
May 26 – Brent Musburger, sportscaster
May 30 – Michael J. Pollard, actor
June 1 – Cleavon Little, actor
June 8 – Barry Lando, journalist
June 9 – Dick Vitale, sportscaster
June 18 - Amanda Lear, French Indo-China-born television presenter, singer-songwriter, model, painter and muse
June 19 – John MacArthur, pastor
July 4 – Ed Bernard, actor
July 10 – Lawrence Pressman, actor
July 16 – Corin Redgrave, English actor
July 31 – Susan Flannery, actress
August 12 – David Jacobs, writer and producer
August 16 – Trevor McDonald, Trinidadian-born British news presenter
August 21 – Clarence Williams III, actor
August 22 – Valerie Harper, actress
August 29 – Joel Schumacher, film director
August 30
*William G. Schilling, actor
*Elizabeth Ashley, actress
September 1 – Lily Tomlin, actress and comedian
September 5 – William Devane, actor
September 11 – Tom Cherones, producer
September 13 – Richard Kiel, actor
September 18 – Fred Willard, actor and comedian
September 26
*Gerald W. Abrams, American television producer
*Ricky Tomlinson, English actor
September 28 – Rudolph Walker, British-Trinidadian actor
September 29 – Larry Linville, actor
September 30 – Len Cariou, actor
October 7 – Clive James, Australian writer, television presenter, talk show host and critic
October 27 – John Cleese, English actor and comedian
October 30 – Danny Goldman, actor
October 31
*Ron Rifkin, American actor
*Tom O'Connor, British comedian
November 11 – Denise Alexander, actress
November 15 – Yaphet Kotto, actor
November 19 – Garrick Utley, American television journalist
November 20 – Dick Smothers, actor and comedian
November 25 – J. J. Jackson, radio and television personality
November 26 – Mark Margolis, actor
December 27 – John Amos, actor
December 28 – Yehoram Gaon, Israeli actor and singer