John Williams won his first Grammy Award for Best Original Score for his work on Jaws, the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, February 28, 1976. It was William's second Grammy nomination. He had been nominated for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of a Score for Checkmate back in 1962. Williams also won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his composition on Jaws.
Frank Petersen, born March 2, 1932 in Topeka, Kansas, was the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general.
He enlisted in the US Navy in June 1950 and served as an electronics technician, but he vowed to a combat pilot. He entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1951 and completed flight training in October 1952. He accepted a commission as second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
In February 1979, he was promoted to brigadier general, the first African-American to achieve the rank in the US Marine Corps. In May 1983, he was promoted to major general and in June 1986, to lieutenant general. He was Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, VA in July 1988 when he retired.
Billy Wilder's black-and-white masterpiece Sunset Boulevard won four Golden Globe awards at the 8th ceremony held February 28, 1951. It took home Best Picture, Best Actress for Gloria Swanson, Best Director for Wilder, and Best Original Score for Franz Waxman. It was nominated for three more awards: Best Supporting Actor for Erick von Stroheim, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography Black and White.
Gloria Swanson beat Bette Davis for the Best Actress Award but they both lost the Academy Award.
Herb Alpert released his instrumental piece Rise July 1979 and won the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance at the 22nd ceremony February 27, 1980. Alpert is the only musician to have an instrumental performance and a vocal performance enter into the Billboard Hot 100. His first entry was This Guy's In Love With You which reached #1 in 1968.
Rise reached #1 in October 1979 and remained for two weeks. It also reached #4 on the R&B chart, #17 on the Disco chart, and #1 for a week on the Adult Contemporary Chart.
Pamela Smith, who starts tomorrow as the chief of the US Park Police, is the first African-American woman to hold the top job. She announced already that officers will have to wear body cameras this year within 90 days. The program will be implemented across the country. The announcement comes after the Park Police has faced scrutiny over the clearing of protestors near the White House.
Helen Mirren, actress extraordinaire, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Queen at the 79th ceremony February 25, 2007. She had some stiff competition because Meryl Streep and Judi Dench were also nominated.
The movie was nominated for five more awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Costume Design.
My man Billy Joel won a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male for his album Glass Houses at the 23rd ceremony, February 25, 1981. It had also been nominated for Album of the Year but lost to Christopher Cross (WTF?).
Alicia Andrews, born in Oklahoma City, became the first African-American of Oklahoma's Democratic Party, the first black leader of any political party in June 2019. She graduated from OU with a degree in psychology, and worked in Corporate America, focusing on organizational design and process engineering. She established a real estate practice in Tulsa, where she is today.
Ted Poston, born July 4, 1906 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is one of the first African-American journalists to work for a mainstream, white-owned newspaper, the New York Post. He was a reporter for the New York Amsterdam News, which was published for the African-American community in 1928. He became the editor in 1935.
He was hired by the New York Post in 1936, the third black reporter for a major NYC daily paper. He reported on Jackie Robinsons' entrance to the MLB, and the Little Rock Nine.
Poston worked for the Office of War Information during WWII as part of the Negro Liaison, FDR's Black Cabinet.
He was awarded the George Polk Award in 1949 for National Reporting. He passed away in January 1974.
Clayton Anderson, born February 23, 1959 in Ashland, Nebraska, has been in space twice.
His first trip into space was aboard Atlantis (STS-117) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in June 2007. He remained aboard the ISS as part of Expeditions 15 and 16, returning to Earth on Discovery (STS-120) in November 2007.
His second and final flight was aboard Discovery (STS-131) as mission specialist to the ISS in April 2010. During the mission, he performed three EVAs with fellow astronaut Rick Mastracchio for about 20 and a half hours.
I definitely need to listen to this album again. Shadowfax, a new age music group, won a Grammy for Best New Age Album for Folksongs for a Nuclear Village at the 31st ceremony February 22, 1989. Another album Esperanto was also nominated for Best New Age album in 1993 but lost to Enya.
WALL-E, one of my all-time favorite movies, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 81st ceremony February 22, 2009. It received five more nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. Andrew Stanton directed, wrote the story and the screenplay.
Sigourney Weaver provided the voice of the Axiom's computer.
Oscar Micheaux, born January 2, 1884 in Metropolis, Illinois, was an African-American independent film director and producer of more than 44 movies. He has been described as the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century.
He became a homesteader in South Dakota and began writing as a second source of income, and submitted his articles to the press. The Chicago Defender published one of his earliest articles.
His 1918 novel, The Homesteader got the attention of George Johnson, the manager of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers. Conflicts between Micheaux and Johnson resulted in the Lincoln company not producing the film.
Micheaux founded the Micheaux Film & Book Company in Chicago and its first project was the Homesteader. Micheaux's movies featured genuine black life, dealing with race relationships, and challenges for blacks trying to achieve success. He opposed racial injustice received by African-Americans. He did not shy away from topics such as lynching, rape mob violence, and white supremacy. He would counter the depiction of African-Americans in white movies.
Micheaux passed away in March 1951 in North Carolina and is buried in Great Bend, Kansas.
His film Body and Soul was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987.
Frederick McKinley Jones, born May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio was an African-American inventor who was awarded 61 patents over his lifetime. After serving in the US Army during WWI, he went back to Hallock, Minnesota where he had lived prior to the war. He built a transmitter for the new radio station in town. He invented a device to combine sound with motion pictures, since the local theater could not afford the speaker system for "talkies".
About 1938, Jones designed a cooling system that made it possible to transport food over long distances without spoiling. These portable cooling units were used during WWII to preserve blood, medicine and food which were so important to army hospitals. His inventions helped save thousands of lives.
He passed away in Minneapolis in 1961. In 1977, he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1991, then President George Bush awarded the National Medal of Technology to Joseph Numero, who hired Jones in 1930, and Fred Jones, making Jones the first African-American to win the award.
Emmett Ashford, born November 23, 1914, was the first African-American umpire in Major League Baseball. He began moonlighting as an umpire in a Santa Ana municipal softball league and National Night Ball League of Southern California. He left Santa Ana to umpire in the Southwestern International League, making him the first black umpire in professional baseball..
He joined the Arizona-Texas league and then to the Western International League in 1953, and then onto the Pacific Coast League in 1954.
After 12 years, he was promoted to the American League and made his major league debut April 11, 1966 at DC Stadium. He retired in 1970.
The Queen of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for her performance of All That Jazz at the 33rd ceremony held February 20, 1991. It was the title track from her last studio album of the same name, which was released in 1989.
Reptilicus, Denmark's only foray into the giant monster arena, was released February 20, 1961. Copper miners discover a frozen piece of a prehistoric monster. Of course, scientists studying it inadvertently bringing it back to life. It grows into a giant reptile and wreaks havoc across the Danish countryside, including the Tivoli Gardens! Oh, no!
It was featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2017.
Ruth Carol Taylor, born December 27, 1931, was the first African-American flight attendant in the US. She became a registered nurse from the Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City. She was hired in December 1957 and started on February 11, 1958 as a flight attendant for Mohawk Airlines, for the Ithaca to New York route.
She was let go within six months because Mohawk Air had a ban against common marriage ban.
Rodolfo Neri Vela, born in Chilpancingo, Mexico February 19, 1952, is the first astronaut from Mexico and the second Latin-American in space. He traveled aboard Atlantis (STS-61-B) as a payload specialist in November-December 1985.
My man Billy Joel appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest February 18, 1978. It was his second appearance on the show. He performed Only the Good Die Young and Just the Way You Are.
Cathay Williams, born September 1844 in Independence, Missouri, was the first black woman to enlist in the US Army, serving in the American Indian Wars. Her father was a free man but her mother was a slave, meaning Williams' place in the world was a slave. At the time, the US Army prohibited women from serving, so Williams enlisted under the false name of William Cathay, passing herself as a man, on November 15, 1866. She was assigned to the 38th US Infantry Regiment. After a bout of smallpox, she was hospitalized and a surgeon discovered she was a woman., She was discharged by her CO Capt. Charles Clarke, October 14, 1868.
Onesimus, an African-born slave born in the late 1600s, was enslaved and, in 1706, given to Cotton Mather, a New England Puritan minister, who was instrumental in the Salem Witch trials and prosecuting pirates. His real name is not known and Mather was the one who named him Onesimus, after a 1st century slave mentioned in the Bible. The name means "useful, helpful, or profitable".
Around 1716, Onesimus told Mather of an inoculation performed on him and others in Africa that protected him from smallpox, where a thorn is inserted into a pus-filled spore of an infected person and injected into the skin of a healthy person, making them immune to the disease.
When smallpox broke out in Boston in 1721, Mather promoted the inoculation method as protection, citing Onesimus as the source. Of course, Bostonians were having none of the African medicine, butr a physician Zabdiel Boylston performed the method on his 6-year-old son and two slaves. Two hundred eighty people were inoculated in 1721-1722. Only 6 of them died, a rate of 2.2%, compared to 14.3% of people who were not inoculated.
In 2016, Onesimus was declared one of the "Best Bostonians of All Time".
Patricia "Patty" Andrews, the youngest of the iconic Andrews Sisters, was born February 16, 1918. Although the last born, she was the lead singer of the group. They have sold an estimated 80M records. Their first #1 hit was "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" in 1938.
Blanche Kelso Bruce, born March 1, 1841 into slavery in Virginia, was the first elected African-American from Mississippi senator to serve a full term. Hiram Revels, also of Mississippi was the first African-American senator but did not complete a full term.
His mother was a domestic slave and his father was her master, Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia planter. His father legally freed him and arranged for an apprenticeship to learn a trade. He worked as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River and moved to Hannibal, Missouri where he established a school for black children. In 1868, he purchased a Mississippi Delta plantation and became a landowner of several thousand acres in the delta area.
He was elected to the Senate in 1874 and on February 14, 1879, he presided over the first African-American and the only former slave to do so. He served from March 1875 to March 1881.
He was appointed Register of the Treasury in 1897 by President William McKinley and served until his death in 1898.
Garrett Morgan, born March 4, 1877 in Claysville, Kentucky, was an African-American inventor who invented the smoke hood, the predecessor to the gas mask. He noticed firefighters struggling against smoke while they battled fires, which led to his invention of the smoke hood. Not a success at first, Morgan got the chance to demonstrate his invention in a real-life situation.
In July 1916, an explosion in a tunnel under Lake Erie left many workers trapped. Two attempts were made to rescue the men, but the rescuers were overcome by smoke and fumes. Morgan arrived on the scene with his brother Frank. Garrett made four trips helping retrieve survivors and the bodies of those who perished.
By WWI, his smoke hood was refined to carry its own air supply, making it a gas mask.
Morgan also developed hair products for straightening hair and a three-position traffic signal. He passed away in July 1963.
The original motion picture Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, opened in theaters February 14, 1931. How romantic! Lugosi had appeared in the 1927 stage production on Broadway, which was based on the 1924 version in London.
The plays were based on the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
The 1931 version of the movie was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
The American Film Institute has recognized Dracula as:
Charles "Charlie" Sampson, born July 2, 1957 in Los Angeles, California, is the first African-American cowboy to win a world championship in professional rodeo. He won the title of Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) World Champion bull rider in 1982. HIs idol, Myrtis Dightman, the first African-American bull rider, was known as the "Jackie Robinson of Rodeo".
He retired in 1994 at the National Circuit Finals Rodeo in Pocatello, Idaho. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1996.
Ray Charles, one of the most gifted singers of all time, won five posthumous Grammy awards at the 47th annual ceremony February 13, 2005. He had passed away in June 2004.
He won Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for Here We Go Again with Norah Jones. He was Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for his album Genius Loves Company. His duet with Gladys Knight won Best Gospel Performance.
Genius Loves Company won Best Engineered Album Non-Classical and Best Surround Sound Album.
Al Schmitt, an engineer for Genius Loves Company is the first person to have won both the Album of the Year and Latin Grammy for Album of the Year.
Charles' recording of America the Beautiful was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
His duo with Elton John Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Valeri Rozhdestvensky, born February 13, 1939 Leningrad, Soviet Union, went into space aboard Soyuz 23. It was his only trip into space, but considering the problems he and Commander Vyacheslav Zudov encountered during their disastrous trip, one cannot blame him. Fortunately, he and Zudov survived their ordeal.
Otis Boykin, born August 29, 1920 in Dallas, Texas, invented the electrical resistor, a small, unassuming piece of equipment that revolutionized electronics. His invention vastly improved the pacemaker, which uses electrical impulses to maintain a regular heartbeat. His mother passed away when he was one year old, and that is probably the impetus for his life's work.
He passed away in March 1982 in Chicago, Illinois.
Back row (L-R): Janice Voss, Kevin Kegel, Dominic Gorie, Janet Kavandi
Mission patch
Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-99), launched February 11, 2000, was the last solo flight of the Endeavour, since the rest of her flights were devoted to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Commander Kevin Kregel, Pilot Dominic Pudwill Gorie, Gerhard Thiele (ESA), Janet Kavandi, Janice Voss, Mamoru Mohri (NASDA).
Glenn Miller's recording of In The Mood reached #1 in the US February 10, 1940. Miller was the best-selling recording artist from 1939-1942 with 16 #1 hits.
Miller released his recording in 1939 and NPR included it on its list of the "100 most important American musical works of the 20th century". It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1983. In 2004, it was inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Ethel Waters, born October 31, 1896 in Chester, Pennsylvania, was the first African-American to star as the lead in television series. She appeared in Beulah from 1950-1951, when she quit. She played a housekeeper/cook for the Henderson family. The show ran for three seasons and Hattie McDaniel stepped in but appeared in only six episodes before she had to quit due to health reasons.
She was the second African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award and the first African-American to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. Three of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
My man Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame at the 46th awards ceremony February 8, 2004. The single was released in September 1977 and won two Grammys in 1979 for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
Other songs inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame 2004 included Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, and the soundtracks to West Side Story, Fantasia and Saturday Night Fever.
Gwendolyn Brooks, born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, was an American poet and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize Prize for Poetry in May 1950 for her book Annie Allen, making her the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, was published in 1945. It gained instant critical acclaim. It was her second book Annie Allen, about the life of a young black girl growing up in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.
She won many awards for her poetry over her lifetime. She passed away in December 2000.
Agnes Moorehead won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte at the 22nd ceremony February 8, 1965. It was her second Golden Globe, her first being awarded in 1945, also for Best Supporting Actress in Mrs. Parkington.
She was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.
Douglas Wilder, born on January 17, 1931 in Richmond, Virginia, became the first African-American governor of Virginia and the first since the Reconstruction era. He served from January 1990 until January 1994.
He is the grandson of slaves and graduated from Virginia Union University with a degree in chemistry in 1951. He served in the US Army in the Vietnam War and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions at the Battle of Pork Chop Hill.
Arthur "Art" Dorrington, born March 13, 1930 in Nova Scotia, Canada, was the first African-American to sign an NHL contract, when he joined the New York Rangers in 1950. Unfortunately, he never played in the major leagues, despite having very good statistics. He played for the Atlantic City Seagulls, the New Haven Tomahawks, Washington Lions, Boston Olympics, Johnstown Jets and the Philadelphia Ramblers. After he retired from hockey, he became a sheriff's officer for Atlantic County in New Jersey.
Fiddler on the Roof won two Golden Globes at the 29th annual ceremony February 6, 1972. It won for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. Topol won for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy or Musical. It received two more nominations. Paul Mann was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Lazar Wolf. Norman Jewison was nominated for Best Director.
Other nominations that night: Angela Lansbury for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for her performance in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Cloris Leachman as Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for her performance in the Last Picture Show. The Andromeda Strain was nominated for Best Original Score for Gil Melle.
Captain America, the first Marvel superhero to appear outside of a comic book, premiered February 5, 1944. Dick Purcell played Captain America/Grant Gardner instead of Steve Rogers. The studio Republic rejected the backstory of Rogers being too puny and weak to join the army, so he took a serum that turned him into a super soldier. Grant Gardner is a lawyer who fights crime by night.
Captain America was a serial, Republic's last, and had fifteen episodes. Dick Purcell, an amateur boxer and a black belt in Judo, died of heart failure in 1944, shortly after filming concluded.
My girls the Pointer Sisters appeared on American Bandstand February 5, 1977. They sang You Gotta Believe, from the movie Car Wash. They appeared on American Bandstand's 25th anniversary special the night before.
Dick Clark interviewed them after their performance. I couldn't find a video of the song but here is the interview with Clark.
The 1st Rhode Island Regiment was a regiment raised during the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783. Although it is considered the first black military unit, it was not exclusively black.
It was organized on May 8, 1775 under Colonel James Varnum and became known as Varnum's Regiment. He marched to Massachusetts in June 1775 where they took part in the siege of Boston. The soldiers, who had signed up until the end of 1775 were discharged on New Year's Eve.
They were reorganized on January 1, 1776 as the 9th Continental Regiment. When they were reorganized in 1777 they became known as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. It was one of the few units in the Continental Army to serve through the entire war, disbanding in November 1783.
Lonnie Johnson, born October 6, 1949 in Mobile, Alabama, is a NASA scientist and entrepreneur. Although he owns a number of patents for his work developing a nuclear power source for the Galileo probe to Jupiter, and the stealth bomber program, he is more famous for inventing the Super Soaker. The Super Soaker first appeared in 1990 and in November 2013, after months of litigation, he was awarded almost $73M from Hasbro.
My man Billy Joel sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl XLI February 4, 2007 between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears. Marlee Matlin signed the words in American Sign Language.
Clyde Tombaugh, born February 4, 1906 in Streator, Illinois, is the man who discovered Pluto, then the ninth planet in the solar system. Based on the observations of Percival Lowell, Tombaugh finally discovered Pluto in 1930. He discovered many asteroids and minor planets. Asteroid 1604 Tombaugh, which was discovered in 1931, is named after him.
He passed away in January 1997 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Arthur Ashe, born July, 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, was the first African-American to be selected to the United States Davis Cup team in 1963. He is the first (and only!) African-American man to win singles titles at Wimbledon, US Open, and the Australian Open.
He was the first black male to play in the Maryland boys' championships in 1958. He was the first black man to win the National Junior indoor tennis title. In 1968, he won the United States Amateur Championships.
He passed away in February 1993 from AIDS-related pneumonia following a tainted blood transfusion he received during heart bypass surgery in 1983.
Iran's Aerospace Research Institute launched its first biological payload aboard Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) February 3, 2010. It carried one rodent, two turtles, and several worms into sub-orbital space, and returned them alive back to Earth.
Henry Blair, born in 1807 in Glenn Ross, Maryland, was the second African-American to receive a US patent. He first invented the Seed-Planter, for which he received a patent in October 1834. Two years later, he was granted a second patent for a cotton planter.
We all remember Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' when she performed at the halftime show during Super Bowl XXXVIII February 1, 2004. She was blackballed after the incident, in which Justin Timberlake also appeared.
Whatever.
I'm still proud of her for performing! I'm still a big fan!
