Portrait of Dorothy Shirley

Birthday profile

Dorothy Shirley

Dorothy Shirley, English high jumper and educator

Born
May 15, 1939
Age in 2026
87
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1939

About Dorothy Shirley

Dorothy Ada Emerson is a former British athlete, who mainly competed in the women's high jump event. Shirley became the national high jump champion after winning the British WAAA Championships title at the 1960 WAAA Championships. Shortly afterwards Shirley competed for Great Britain in the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, Italy, where she won the silver medal in the high jump jointly with Jarosława Jóźwiakowska. Shirley became a teacher and worked as a PE teacher at Bentham Grammar School in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the early 1970s.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Dorothy Shirley timeline

  1. Shirley became the national high jump champion after winning the British WAAA Championships title at the 1960 WAAA Championships.
  2. Shortly afterwards Shirley competed for Great Britain in the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, Italy, where she won the silver medal in the high jump jointly with Jarosława Jóźwiakowska.

The world when Dorothy Shirley was born

Dorothy Shirley was born in 1939. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1939

  • #1 song"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland
  • Top movieGone with the Wind
  • Best-selling bookThe Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentLou Gehrig delivers his "Luckiest Man" farewell speech
  • Top headlineGermany invades Poland — World War II begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular television broadcasts in the US (NBC)
  • Defining fadThe Wizard of Oz mania
  • Notable inventionNylon stockings
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population130.9M

1939 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Dorothy Shirley's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19392026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,200$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population130.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, International Olympic Committee. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.