President Richard Nixon signs legislation banning
cigarette ads on TV and radio.

MIKE GRACIA

On this day in 1997, Dr. Martin Luther King JR’s son Dexter (left) 
met with James Earl Ray, the accused assassin of his father.

April 1968

It was on this day in 2002.

On this day in 1998, the FDA approved the prescription drug Viagra,
the first pill for male impotence.

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Film director, producer, and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino first received
acclaim for his 1990s crime films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie
Brown.  He dropped out of High School his freshman year to go to acting
school.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1968, U.S. troops in Vietnam destroyed a village
consisting mostly of women and children. The event is known
as the My-Lai massacre.

William Laws Calley Jr. will be 75 in June.

Terry Anderson, an Associated Press newsman, was taken hostage
in Beirut on this day in 1985. He was released on December 4,1991.

Physicist Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fuel rocket on
this day in 1926. Goddard is known as the father of modern rocketry.

Robert Hutchings Goddard
(October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945)

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch)  (March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017)

Comedian, actor, and muscular dystrophy telethon host Jerry Lewis 
formed one of history’s greatest comedy teams with Dean Martin. He
received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Los Angeles Film
Critics Association, The American Comedy Awards, and the Venice
Film Festival.

From left: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

     
    
   
    
   

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, honored the best films of 1927 and 1928 and 
took place on May 16, 1929 at a private dinner held at the Hollywood
Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The academy’s president
Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show. Tickets cost $5 and 270 people
attended the event. The presentation ceremony lasted 15 minutes. The
Awards were created by Louis B. Mayer, founder of Louis B. Mayer
Pictures Corporation which merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the
only Awards ceremony not to be broadcast either on radio or TV. The
radio broadcast was aired the following year in 1930. The first television
broadcast was made by NBC on March 19, 1953.

Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress Academy Award
in the 1929 ceremony.

Ed Wynn became the first big-name, vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent.

Ed Wynn on stage (second from left) as “The Fire Chief,” ca. 1935.

Ed Wynn (Isaiah Edwin Leopold)
(November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966)