A Blast from the Past

Today is May 16

The first Academy Awards were presented on this date in 1929, during a dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and attended by about 270 people. Awards were given in 12 categories. The silent film "Wings" was named best picture and acting awards went to Janet Gaynor and Emil Jannings. A committee of only 20 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected the winners that year. By the third year, the entire membership of the academy voted.

It was on this date in 1995 that the leader of a Japanese religious cult was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder in the March nerve-gas attacks in a Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000.

The French Senate declared Napoleon Bonaparte emperor of France on this date in 1804. His actual coronation was held Dec. 2, 1804, during which Napoleon took the crown out of the hands of the pope and placed it on his own head.

And it was on this date in 1988 that Surgeon General C. Everett Koop labeled nicotine as addictive as heroin or cocaine and called for the licensing of tobacco product vendors. We imagine cigarette makers were not amused.

We now return you to the present, already in progress.