Janet Gaynor were named best actor and best actress.

In 1939, the government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, N.Y.

In 1948, CBS News correspondent George Polk, who’d been covering the Greek civil war between Communist and nationalist forces, was found slain in Salonica Harbor.

In 1960, a Big Four summit conference in Paris collapsed on its opening day as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded, but did not receive, an apology from President Dwight D. Eisenhower over the U-2 incident. The first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu by physicist Theodore Maiman.

In 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

In 1990, death claimed entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in Los Angeles at age 64 and “Muppets” creator JimHenson in New York at age 53.

Ten years ago: The Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate by half a point, the biggest increase in five years. The New York Democratic Party, meeting in Albany, nominated first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for the U.S. Senate. The Britney Spears album “Oops!... I Did It Again” was released by Jive Records.

Five years ago: Newsweek magazine retracted its Quran abuse story that sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan. Army Spc. Sabrina Harman was convicted at Fort Hood, Texas, of six of the seven charges she’d faced for her role in the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. (Harman was sentenced to six months in prison after testimony about her acts of kindness toward Iraqis before she became an Abu Ghraib guard;