Daily Almanac for Thursday, February 29, 2024

By Marisol Nicholson

On this date in 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award for her role as Mammy in the film Gone With the Wind. Hattie McDaniel, studio publicity photo in 1939. By Unknown, Public Domain, https commons.wikimedia.org

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1893 – October 26, 1952) was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedienne. For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975, and in 2006 became the first Black Oscar winner honored with a U.S. postage stamp. In 2010, she was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.

In addition to acting, McDaniel recorded 16 blues sides between 1926 and 1929 and was a radio performer and television personality; she was the first Black woman to sing on radio in the United States. Although she appeared in more than 300 films, she received on-screen credits for only 83. Her best known other major films are Alice Adams, In This Our Life, Since You Went Away, and Song of the South.

McDaniel experienced racism and racial segregation throughout her career, and was unable to attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta because it was held at a whites-only theater. At the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, she sat at a segregated table at the side of the room. In 1952, McDaniel died of breast cancer. Her final wish to be buried in Hollywood Cemetery was denied because the graveyard was restricted to whites only at the time.

A 1939 publicity photo for Gone with the Wind including Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland, and Vivien Leigh. By MGM, Public Domain, https commons.wikimedia.org

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

Who decided on the placement of the keys on a typewriter (or a computer keyboard)?

We had to go to the expert on this one. Anthony Casillo, collector and historian of typewriters, informs me that Christopher Latham Sholes, who invented the typewriter in 1868, patented as the Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer, first used the QWERTY arrangement as a result of trying to avoid the type bars clashing at the printing point. At first the keys were arranged alphabetically, but the machine kept jamming. When frequently used combinations of letters were separated mechanically in order to avoid this problem, the end result at the keyboard was QWERTY.

Advice of the Day

Leap year was ne’er a good sheep year.

Home Hint of the Day

Keep magnets handy in your toolbox and your shop. They make it easy to pick up hardware that you spread out or spill.

Word of the Day

Syzygy

The nearly straight-line configuration that occurs twice a month, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction (on the same side of Earth at the new Moon) and when they are in opposition (on opposite sides of Earth at the full Moon). In both cases, the gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon reinforce each other, and tidal range is increased.

Puzzle of the Day

Why is it that a man cannot own a cane that is too short?

Because it can never be-long to him.

Died

Alessandro Striggio (composer) – 1592
Jerome Lawrence (playwright) – 2004
Davy Jones (musician; member of The Monkees) – 2012

Born

Jimmy Dorsey (bandleader) – 1904
Dinah Shore (singer) – 1916
Jack Lousma (astronaut) – 1936
Willi Donnell Smith (fashion designer) – 1948

Events

Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award for her role as Mammy in the film Gone With the Wind– 1940
In Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence received his 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics– 1940
Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation – 1984
In Bethel, Maine, the largest snowwoman (122 feet, 1 inch tall) was dedicated– 2008

Weather

A heavy snowstorm dumped 30 inches on Salem, Massachusetts– 1748

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