April 14, 1894: The first commercial “Kinetoscope parlor,” with five machines for patrons to view films made at Thomas Edison’s studio, opens in New York City.
April 12, 1908: In one of the first cases of movie censorship, Chicago authorities ban the exhibition of the short film The James Boys in Missouri.
April 12, 1911: Cartoonist Winsor McCay brings his popular Little Nemo in Slumberland characters to animated life in Little Nemo and the Princess.
April 17, 1919: United artists Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks team up to form…United Artists Corporation.
April 18, 1922: A week after he was acquitted of rape charges, screen comic Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is still banned from working in film by the MPDDA.
April 17, 1924: The merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and the independent Louis B. Mayer Company into MGM is announced.
April 12, 1932: The first “all-star” (John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, et al.) movie, MGM’s Oscar-winning Grand Hotel, opens.
April 16, 1932: Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box, which goes on to earn the duo a Best Comedy Short Subject Academy Award, opens.
April 13, 1935: Prior to shooting their first MGM film, The Marx Brothers start a nationwide stage tour featuring scenes from A Night at the Opera.
April 16, 1937: Portrayed by Joel McCrea, the character of Dr. Kildare makes his film debut in the MGM drama Internes Can’t Take Money.
April 17, 1937: A manic, “darn-fool duck” named Daffy makes his debut in the Warner Bros. cartoon Porky’s Duck Hunt, directed by Tex Avery.
April 18, 1937: British composer Sir Arthur Bliss’ score for Things to Come becomes the first soundtrack to be issued on records to the public in its entirety.
April 12, 1940: The only Alfred Hitchcock film to win the Best Picture Academy Award, Rebecca, opens.
April 15, 1942: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy team up for the first time in MGM’s Woman of the Year.
April 18, 1956: Hollywood and European royalty merge when Academy Award-winner Grace Kelly weds Prince Rainier of Monaco.
April 16, 1958: B-movie impresario William Castle launches his “gimmick” films by insuring each viewer of Macabre with Lloyd’s of London against death by fright.
April 17, 1960: Jane Fonda, daughter of Henry, makes her film debut in Joshua Logan’s comedy Tall Story, starring alongside Anthony Perkins.
April 13, 1964: Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American to win a Best Actor Academy Award, for Lilies of the Field.
April 15, 1971: As expected, George C. Scott turns down the Best Actor Oscar he wins for Patton, calling the Academy Awards “a two-hour meat parade.”
April 15, 1983: “What a feeling” audiences get as the splashy dance drama Flashdance, starring Jennifer Beals, opens.
April 15, 1990: Alone at last: iconic leading lady of silent and sound cinema and latter-day recluse Greta Garbo passes away at age 84.
April 16, 1991: David Lean, director of such epics as The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, passes away at the age of 83.
April 18, 2002: Nearly one year after the murder of wife Bonnie Lee Bakley, actor Robert Blake is arrested by the LAPD in connection with the murder.
April 14, 2008: Animator Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” passes away at the age of 95.