On April 7, 1949, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South
Pacific opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway in New
York City. The romantic musical about World War II, which
touches on controversial racial themes, went on to run for
almost five years, becoming one of the most popular musicals
of the 1950s.

On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne won his
first—and only—acting Academy Award, for his star turn
in the director Henry Hathaway’s Western True Grit.

Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of
his long and storied career. He established his tough,
rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly
in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors
John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the
early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor
category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960),
which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a
Best Picture nomination.

Wayne’s Oscar for True Grit at the 42nd annual Academy
Awards in 1970 was generally considered to be a largely
sentimental win, and a long-overdue reward for one of
Hollywood’s most enduring performers.

The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any
of his most celebrated performances, in films such as
Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952),
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially
Ford’s The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be
the greatest Western ever made.

On April 6, 1841, John Tyler was sworn in as president. Tyler
was elected as William Harrison’s vice president earlier in
1841 and was suddenly thrust into the role of president when
Harrison died one month into office.

This 1888 engraving depicts a messenger delivering the news of President William Henry Harrison’s death to Vice President John
Tyler at his Williamsburg home on April 5, 1841.

Country music singer and songwriter Tammy Wynette is considered among the genre’s most influential and successful artists.

Tammy Wynette died from a blood clot in her lung. She was only
55.

In 1931 while looking for a way to keep his company’s shortcake-
baking machinery busy when strawberries are out of season,
manager James Dewar tried injecting one of the cakes with
cream filling. He dubbed his creation the Twinkie.

James Alexander Dewar (1897-1985)