This Day in History: Sunday, April 18, 2021

Television and Radio
In 1966, “The 38^th Annual Academy Awards” was the first Oscars ceremony to be broadcast in color. The winner that year for Best Picture was “The Sound of Music”…“Real People,” a combination of comedy, reality and talk, debuted on NBC in 1979. It aired for five seasons and the regular hosts included Sarah Purcell, Byron Allen, John Barbour, Skip Stephenson, Bill Rafferty, Mark Russell, Peter Billingsley and Fred Willard.

Music
Gene Autry recorded the single “Back in the Saddle Again” in 1939. Several decades later, the rock band Aerosmith records a song that shares the same title.

News
Academy Award winning American film and stage actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956…Actor Robert Blake and his bodyguard were arrested in connection with the shooting death of Blake’s wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, about one year before…The Amtrack Auto Train derailed in a remote area of north Florida in 2002. Four people were killed and 133 were injured.

Books and Magazines
Superman made his debut when he appeared in the first issue of Action Comics in 1938.

Sports
The first baseball game is played at Yankee Stadium in New York City in 1923, with the Yankees beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1…Canadian ice hockey played Wayne Gretzky, considered one of the game’s greatest players, skated in his late NHL game in 1999.

Celebrity Birthdays
Actor James Woods is 73; ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is 58; Conan O’Brien is 57; actress Melissa Joan Hart (“Sabrina, the Teenage Witch”) is 44; reality star Kourtney Kardashian is 41; “Superstore” star America Ferrara is 36.

-Did You Know?:
The fictional “Cloud 9” retail store on NBC’s “Superstore” has also been featured on comedy “The Mindy Project” and NBC’s recently introduced “Good Girls.”