On May 16, 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences handed out its first awards, at a dinner party for
around 250 people held in the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood,
California.

The brainchild of Louis B. Mayer, head of the powerful MGM
film studio, the Academy was organized in May 1927 as a non-
profit organization dedicated to the improvement of the film
industry.

Its first president and the host of the May 1929 ceremony was
the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Unlike today, the winners of
the first Oscars—as the coveted gold-plated statuettes later
became known—were announced before the awards
ceremony itself.

The winners of the first ceremony, including Janet Gaynor
for best actress, were announced a few months in advance. Douglas Fairbanks, president of the academy, handed out
the honors.

Vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Conrad Nigel, presents the Oscar to actress
Norma Shearer.

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.

         
    
    
    
   
J. Edgar Hoover was named acting director of the Bureau of
Investigation (now the FBI) on May 10, 1924. By the end of the
year he was officially promoted to director. This began his 48-
year tenure in power, during which time he personally shaped
American criminal justice in the 20th century.

On May 8, 1963, with the release of Dr. No, North American
moviegoers get their first look–down the barrel of a gun–at
the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal
character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series
of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown
Scottish actor Sean Connery (1930 – 2020).

On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel
into space. 

The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached
a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph 
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The view from Freedom 7.

The Land Rover, a British-made all-terrain vehicle that will soon
earn a reputation for its use in exotic locales, debuted at an auto
show in Amsterdam on April 30, 1948.

The first Land Rover, known as the Series 1, was the brainchild
of Maurice Wilks, the head designer for the British car company
Rover, of which his brother Spencer Wilks was the managing
director.

Maurice Fernand Cary Wilks
(19 August 1904 – 8 September 1963)