CARLATA BRADLEY
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (seated) for the Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the U.S.
Francis Gary Powers and a U2 recon aircraft .
The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in Hollywood on May 16, 1929
with a mere 270 guests. The name Oscar would not used for another few
years. Emil Jannings was the first Best Actor and Janet Gaynor Best Actress.
The first 12 winners (and the 20 films that were given an honorary scroll of commendation) had already been revealed in the Los Angeles Times three
months earlier.
The inaugural awards were the only time in Academy history that the
ceremony wasn’t broadcast in some way; even a year later it was covered
live on radio.
Emil Jannings with his Best Actor statuette.
Douglas Fairbanks presents Janet Gaynor with the
first Academy Award for Best Actress, for her work
in Seventh Heaven.
William C Demille, President Of The Academy Of Motion Picture
Arts And Sciences hands an Oscar to Mary Pickford (with Warner
Baxter and Hans Kraly looking on) at the first ceremony in 1929.
A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da
Nang. President Johnson (below) had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key U.S. airbase there.
This was the first commitment of American combat troops in South Vietnam
and there was considerable reaction around the world to the new stage of
U.S. involvement in the war.
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973)
Hawk missile launchers at Da Nang Airfield in 1965.
Robert Conrad (born Conrad Robert Falk)
(March 1, 1935 – February 8, 2020)
Conrad died from heart failure in Malibu, California today. He is best
known for his role in the 1965–69 CBS television series The Wild Wild
West.
Original NBC release: September 23, 1976 – April 6, 1978.
Orson Bean (Dallas Frederick Burrows)
(July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020)
Orson Bean was a film, television, and stage actor, and a comedian, writer,
and producer. He appeared frequently on televised game shows from the
1960s through the 1980s and was a long-time panelist on the television
game show To Tell the Truth. He was a favorite of Johnny Carson,
appearing on The Tonight Show over 200 times. On February 7, 2020,
while walking near Venice Boulevard and Shell Avenue, in Venice, Los
Angeles, Bean was struck by two drivers, with the second vehicle striking
him fatally.
