May 5, 1903: The film world first mines the riches of the literary world with Edwin S. Porter‘s version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
May 10, 1912: The screen’s earliest romantic pairing, Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne, first gaze into each other’s eyes in The House of Pride.
May 11, 1927: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is founded. There are 36 members, presided over by Douglas Fairbanks.
May 11, 1931: Germany’s first sound film, Fritz Lang‘s M, is released, featuring stage actor Peter Lorre in a chilling portrayal of a child murderer.
May 5, 1934: The Three Stooges star in their first Columbia short, Woman Haters, billed behind Marjorie White. “Hey, what’s the big idea?!”
May 10, 1948: Aviator, business mogul and part-time film producer Howard Hughes purchases RKO for a reported $8.8 million.
May 11, 1963: An Italian court sentences director Pier Paolo Pasolini to four months suspended sentence for “public defamation” because of his work in RoGoPaG.
May 5, 1968: Actor Albert Dekker, 62, is found hanged in his bathroom, bound, handcuffed, clad in lingerie, and with obscenities scrawled on his body in lipstick.
May 10, 1977: Joan Crawford, star of Mildred Pierce and Johnny Guitar and famous Hollywood “mommie,” dies at the age of 73.
May 10, 1980: Teen-slayer Jason Voorhees, not yet wearing his trademark hockey mask, makes his screen debut in the original Friday the 13th.
May 6, 1992: Marlene Dietrich, sultry and sensuous figure of German and American cinema, dies at age 90.