Screen Actors Guild member Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American to win an Academy Award, honored for her portrayal of “Mammy” in “Gone with the Wind” (Actually leap year Feb. 29) - 1940

Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” following a frigid trip -- partially by hitchhiking, partially by rail -- from California to Manhattan. The Great Depression was still raging. Guthrie had heard Kate Smith’s recording of “God Bless America” and resolved to himself: “We can’t just bless America, we’ve got to change it” – 1940

Ida M. Fuller is the first retiree to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484; her first check was for $22.54 - 1940

58,000 Chrysler Corp. workers strike for wage increases - 1939

Labor activist Warren Billings is released from California's Folsom Prison. Along with Thomas J. Mooney, Billings had been pardoned for a 1916 conviction stemming from a bomb explosion during a San Francisco Preparedness Day parade. He had always maintained his innocence - 1939

President Roosevelt signs amendments to the 1935 Social Security Act, broadening the program to include dependents and survivors' benefits - 1939

Hatch Act is passed, limiting political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government - 1939

John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” published - 1939

The Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes, a major organizing tool for industrial unions, are illegal - 1939

Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union leads Missouri Highway sit-down of 1,700 families. They had been evicted from their homes so landowners wouldn't have to share government crop subsidy payments with them - 1939

Wobblie Tom Mooney, accused of a murder by bombing in San Francisco, pardoned and freed after 22 years in San Quentin - 1939

Adolph Strasser, head of the Cigar Maker’s Union and one of the founders of the AFL in 1886, died on this day in Forest Park, Ill. - 1939