On this day in 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reveals the winners of the inaugural Academy Awards.
Gone are the days of suspense, glamour, and the massive press coverage associated with the Oscars of today: The names of the first award winners were merely printed on the back page of the academy’s newsletter. A few days later, the information was featured in Variety …on page seven.
Initiated by movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, the Academy was formed in May 1927 as a non-profit entity focused on the advancement and enhancement of the film industry. The initial awards honored films released in 1927 and 1928. Although announcements occurred in February 1929, the actual awards were distributed on May 16, 1929, during a ceremony and banquet that took place in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Approximately 270 individuals attended the dinner, with many paying $5 for admission.
Gold statuettes, designed by art director Cedric Gibbons and sculpted by George Stanley, were given to the first Academy Award winners. The Academy’s inaugural president, silent film star Douglas Fairbanks, presented the statuettes to the winners. Notable recipients included Janet Gaynor, who received Best Actress for three films: Seventh Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise, and Emil Jannings (The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh), who won Best Actor. The Best Director awards went to Frank Borzage for Seventh Heaven and Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights. Wings, directed by William Wellman, earned Best Picture honors.
In the second year of the awards, the Academy modified its procedure and began to disclose the winners’ names to the press at 11 p.m. on the night of the ceremony. This practice ceased in 1940 when the Los Angeles Times broke from convention and published the results in its evening edition, revealing them before the ceremony. Consequently, the Academy adopted a system of sealed envelopes that is still in use today. The informal nickname “Oscars” was first used in 1931 when a secretary at the Academy remarked on the statue’s resemblance to her Uncle Oscar, a comment that a journalist later published.
The awards were transmitted via radio until 1953, when the first televised Oscars program was broadcast. Since then, the Academy Awards have evolved into one of the most-watched television events globally, attracting nearly 1 billion viewers around the world. Comedian Bob Hope hosted the ceremony about 20 times, while other notable hosts have included Will Rogers, Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jon Stewart.
On this day…in 1930
At the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovers Pluto, a celestial body once thought to be the ninth planet.
The hypothesis of an unobserved ninth planet was originally posited by Percival Lowell, who suggested that the gravitational influence of an unknown planetary body caused the observed wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. After more than ten years of searching based on calculated approximations of the proposed ninth planet’s location, Lowell ultimately had no success. However, in 1929, employing the calculations of Powell and W.H. Pickering as a guide, the search for Pluto resumed at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. On February 18, 1930, utilizing a newly developed astronomical technique involving photographic plates and a blink microscope, Tombaugh successfully identified the small, distant planet. His discovery was validated by multiple astronomers, leading to the public announcement of Pluto’s discovery on March 13, 1930…the anniversary of both Lowell’s birth and William Hershel’s identification of Uranus.
Having a surface temperature estimated at roughly -360 Fahrenheit, Pluto was fittingly named after the Roman god of the underworld in Greek mythology. Its average distance from the sun is close to four billion miles, and it takes around 248 years to orbit once. Additionally, it boasts the most elliptical and tilted orbit of any celestial body classified as a planet, crossing inside Neptune’s orbit, the eighth planet, at its closest approach to the sun.
Following its discovery, some astronomers began to wonder whether Pluto possessed enough mass to influence the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
In 1978, the discovery of Pluto’s only known moon, Charon, was made by James Christy and Robert Harrington, who found it to have a diameter of 737 miles compared to Pluto’s 1,428 miles. It was believed that together, they constituted a double-planet system, with enough mass to induce wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
Nevertheless, in August 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced that Pluto would no longer be classified as a planet, due to new criteria stipulating that planets must “clear the neighborhood around its orbit.” Because Pluto’s elongated orbit intersects with that of Neptune, it was deemed disqualified.
Well, I must say, I’ve had enough of the pampered stars of Hollywood. I sometimes ponder if there is a connection between Pluto and the Oscars. If that’s the case… then there’s a chance that the Oscars… will one day… fade into oblivion… we can only hope.
