The exact dates of the 1939 lunar year
The Earth Rabbit year ran from February 19, 1939 to February 7, 1940. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1939, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1939 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1938 one, February 19, 1939 against January 31, 1938. Why the 1939 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Rabbit pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1939 is Ji and the branch is the Rabbit, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1939 that branch is taken to mean someone careful and diplomatic, avoiding conflict without conceding the point. Earth, the element attached to 1939, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1939 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1938 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1939 is described as the rabbit temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1939
From 1 January 1939 to February 18, 1939 the animal in force was still the Tiger, not the Rabbit — 49 days of 1939 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1939 is a Tiger.
The first Rabbit of 1939 is anyone born on February 19, 1939 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 7, 1940. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 19, 1939 is at the later end.
Where 1939 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1939 is position 16 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Rabbit branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Rabbit year was 1879 and the next is 1999.
Someone born in 1879 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1939, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1939 meets the pairing again in 1999.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rabbit of 1939 is grouped with the Goat and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1935 and 1943. Its opposition is the Rooster, six years on from 1939 in 1945.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1939 was measured to produce them; 1939 stands four years from 1935 and six from 1945, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1939
Because the 1939 lunar year opened on February 19, 1939, its first day falls under Pisces in the western zodiac, and its last, February 7, 1940, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1939 stays the Rabbit.
Handbooks equate the Rabbit of 1939 with Pisces, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1939 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1939 Earth Rabbit as a year-long version of Pisces flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1939 Chinese new year start?
February 19, 1939, and the year ran on to February 7, 1940 — 354 days.
What animal is 1939?
The Rabbit, in its Earth form, from February 19, 1939 onward; a birth earlier in 1939 is a Tiger.
Was 1939 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1939 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1939 — which animal am I?
The Tiger, unless you were born on February 19, 1939 or later, which is when the 1939 year began.