- published: 13 Apr 2014
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Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the deadliest human conflict in history.
Below, events of World War II have the WWII prefix.
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or alleged economic justice.
Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks, stagecoaches and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves.
The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 until 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a state reward on James' head.
I once saw a girl on my lawn
She was so pretty and young
She walked right up and just said
"Your house is where I once lived"
She asked to look around
To see if she could find
The part of her she left behind
That she needed to move on
I didn't want to let her down
It was with her that I was found
So I lead her into my place
You should have seen her face
She said her name was Sam
And I let her know who I am
She asked if she could bathe
And I said: "Okay"
An hour went by and the door opened wide
And through the steam I saw her eyes
She said: "You saved my life"
It was with her that I was right
A week maybe two disappeared
She never came back around here
I asked the old man living beside
If he remembered Sam and he cried
The beauty he described
Was the girl I let inside
But what he said after I'll never forget
Until the day that I die
The girl I met drowned in the bath
In my house at 25
In 1939