May 28, 1935: Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation unite to form 20th Century Fox, overseen by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck.
May 31, 1938: NBC broadcasts the first feature film on television shown in a single installment, The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
May 28, 1941: Animators and artists at the Walt Disney Studios launch an acrimonious two-month strike for pay raises and the right to unionize.
June 1, 1943: The plane carrying refined British actor Leslie Howard, 50, is shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay near Lisbon, Portugal.
May 26, 1952: The U.S. Supreme Court, declaring movies a form of free speech, strikes down a New York court’s ban on Roberto Rossellini‘s The Miracle.
May 31, 1971: The body of 46-year-old World War II hero and actor Audie Murphy is discovered in Virginia in the wreckage of a plane crash.
May 29, 1979: “America’s Sweetheart” and silent screen legend Mary Pickford dies at the age of 87 in Santa Monica, California.
May 29, 1987: Director John Landis is acquitted of manslaughter charges stemming from 1982’s Twilight Zone–The Movie helicopter accident.