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| 1939 September 1 |
| | | Adolf Hitler launches a massive attack on Poland, with tanks crossing the border and air raids on Warsaw | |
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| 1939 September 1 |
| | | Spain and Portugal declare that they will maintain their neutrality in the European war that now seems inevitable | |
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| 1939 September 1 |
| | | George Marshall becomes US Army chief of staff, a post he retains to the end of World War II | |
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| 1939 September 3 |
| | | Britain and France, receiving no answer from Hitler to their ultimatum over his attack on Poland, declare war on Germany | |
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| 1939 September 3 |
| | | On the very first day of the war a U-boat sinks a British liner, the Athenia, with the loss of 112 civilian lives | |
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| 1939 |
| | | The new German technique of blitzkrieg ('lightning war') is demonstrated with devastating effect against Poland | |
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| 1939 |
| | | French troops rush to defend France's border with Germany, along the heavily fortified Maginot Line | |
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| 1939 |
| | | A British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of about 150,000 infantry crosses the Channel to help defend France's border with Belgium | |
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| 1939 |
| | | In spite of the Axis agreement of 1936, Mussolini declines to bring Italy into the war on Hitler's side | |
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| 1939 September |
| | | Alan Turing joins the code-breaking team working on Enigma at Bletchley Park | |
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