List of Famous people who died in 1939

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

Joe Arridy was a young American man known for having been falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, and wrongfully executed for the 1936 rape and murder of Dorothy Drain, a 15-year-old girl in Pueblo, Colorado. He was manipulated by the police to make a false confession due to his mental incapacities. Arridy was severely mentally disabled and was 23 years old when he was executed on January 6, 1939.

Howard Carter was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist. He became world-famous after discovering the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh, Tutankhamun in November 1922. Tutankhamun's tomb is famous because of the treasures it held intact for over three thousand years; it is the best-preserved pharaonic tomb found in the Valley of the Kings.

Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen was a Danish chemist, famous for the introduction of the concept of pH, a scale for measuring acidity and alkalinity.

Masabumi Hosono was a Japanese civil servant. He was the only Japanese passenger on the RMS Titanic's disastrous maiden voyage. He survived the ship's sinking on 15 April 1912 but found himself condemned and ostracized by the Japanese public, press, and government for his decision to save himself rather than go down with the ship. Hosono's grandson is Haruomi Hosono, leading member of the Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Alfons Maria Mucha, known internationally as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech painter, illustrator and graphic artist, living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, best known for his distinctly stylized and decorative theatrical posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt. He produced illustrations, advertisements, decorative panels, and designs, which became among the best-known images of the period.

Eugen Weidmann was a German criminal and serial killer who was executed by guillotine in France in June 1939, the last public execution in that country.

Kiyohara Tama (清原玉), also known as Kiyohara Otama (清原お玉) or O'Tama Chiovara, Eleonora Ragusa (エレオノーラ・ラグーザ), or Ragusa Tama (ラグーザ・玉) was a Japanese painter who spent most of her life in the Sicilian city of Palermo. Her maiden name was Kiyohara Tamayo (清原多代).

James Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, sports coach, and inventor of the game of basketball. After moving to the United States, he wrote the original basketball rule book and founded the University of Kansas basketball program. Naismith lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Tournament (1939).