The winners from the 1st Academy Awards.

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1927 and
1928 and took place on May 16, 1929 during a private dinner held at the
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. AMPAS president
Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show.

Only 270 guests attended the ceremony that took just 15 minutes.

Douglas Fairbanks presents Janet Gaynor with the
first Academy Award for Best Actress, for her work
in Seventh Heaven. 

Emil Jannings with the first ever Academy Award “Oscar”.

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.

On this day in 1959, Lee Petty defeats Johnny Beauchamp in a photo finish at
the just-opened Daytona International Speedway in Florida to win the first-ever Daytona 500. The race was so close that Beauchamp was initially named the
winner by William France, the owner of the track and head of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). However, Petty, who was
driving a hardtop Oldsmobile 88, challenged the results and three days later,
with the assistance of news photographs, he was officially named the champ.

There was speculation that France declared Beauchamp the winner in order to intentionally stir up controversy and generate publicity for his new race track.

Today, the 200-lap, 500-mile Daytona 500 is one of auto racing’s premiere
events and the first race of the NASCAR season. France, a gas station owner
and racing promoter, officially co-founded NASCAR in Daytona Beach in
1948.

Lee Arnold Petty (March 14, 1914 – April 5, 2000)

Johnny Beauchamp
(March 23, 1923 – April 17, 1981)

   
William Henry Getty France (September 26, 1909 – June 7, 1992)

Lee Petty’s 1959 Oldsmobile Super 88 in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

MIKE GRACIA

During the Civil War on this day in 1862, about 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson, TN.

Ulysses S. Grant (Hiram Ulysses Grant)
(April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885)

Frank Robinson (August 31, 1935 – February 7, 2019)

Frank Robinson played in Major League Baseball for five teams from 1956 to
1976, and became the only player to win the MLB Most Valuable Player Award
in both the National League and American League. He won the Triple Crown,
was a member of two teams that won the World Series (the 1966 and 1970
Baltimore Orioles), and amassed the fourth-most career home runs at the
time of his retirement (he is currently 10th). Robinson was elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.

Robinson was the first black manager in MLB history. He managed the
Cleveland Indians during the last two years of his playing career, with
a 186–189 record. He went on to manage the San Francisco Giants, the
Baltimore Orioles, and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals. He
was the honorary President of the American League. Robinson died in
Los Angeles as a result of bone cancer.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed
enlarging the U.S. Supreme Court by as many as 15 judges.The controversial plan failed.

The 1937 U.S. Supreme Court.

On this day in 1994, white separatist Byron De La Beckwith (left) was convicted
in Jackson, MS, of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers (right).

De La Beckwith was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He
died while incarcerated seven years later at age 80. He had suffered from
heart disease, high blood pressure, and other ailments for some time.

The above Mississippi home where Medgar Evers was fatally shot
in the back as he was getting out of his car on June 12, 1963.

    (February 25, 2013)

Medgar Evers was the first assassination of a 
high-ranking public figure in the civil rights
movement.