Hey, what's up? Welcome to English with Dane, a show designed to improve your English. As always, I'm your host, Dane, and you can find me on Instagram at Englishwith Dane. On today's show, I'm going to talk a little bit about history, specifically things that happened this week, but many years ago. I think it's always interesting to take a step back, tomar unpaso atrás, and observe past events. It gives us a little bit of context.
We get to see the bigger picture, which is probably a good thing. So today we have a historical moment at the Oscars, a big scientific discovery, and a government asking the public for help. So let's get into it. You are listening to the eighth episode of season two of English with Dane. Hit it.com to learn about what happened this week in history. The first one says, Hattie McDaniel becomes first African American actress to win Oscar.
On February 29th, 1940, Gone with the Wind, lo que el viento se llevó, is honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences. An epic Southern romance set during the hard times of the Civil War, the movie swept Arraso, the prestigious Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Filiting, and Actress categories.
However, sin embargo, the most momentous award that night, undoubtedly, sin duda, went to Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal or depiction of Mammy, a housemaid and former slave. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar. A little bit of background on Hattie McDaniels.
She was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1895, and she demonstrated her talents as a singer and actress while growing up in Denver, Colorado. She left school while she was a teenager to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups and in 1924 became one of the first African American women to sing on US radio.
A minstrel group, by the way, is a traveling entertainment group that performs sketches, dances, etc. Then it says, with the onset or the beginning, la llegada, of the Great Depression, she was forced to take work as a ladies' washroom attendant in a Milwaukee club. The club, which hired que contrataba, only white performers, eventually made an exception and let her sing, and she performed there for a year before setting her sights on Hollywood. So she set her sights on Hollywood.
She played a series of roles, but eventually was able to play Mammy in Gone with the Wind, like we said before. Alright, next one. This one happened on the 28th of February, but in the year 1953, so early 50s, as we say. It says, Watson and Crick discover the chemical structure of DNA. On this day in 1953, Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Francis Crick announced that they have determined the double helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.
Though DNA was discovered in 1869, its crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn't demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists working on figuring out, desifrando, the structure of DNA. In California, a chemist by the name of Linus Pauling suggested, Suhirio, an incorrect model at the beginning of 1953, which made Watson and Crick try and beat Pauling at his own game. Okay, this part's a little bit tricky.
On the morning of February 28th, they determined that the structure of DNA was a double helix polymer, or a spiral, of two DNA strands, fibras, each containing a long chain of monomer nucleotides, which wound around each other, which observaron or encontraron, DNA replicated itself by separating into individual strands, each of which became the template for a new double helix.
And it was kind of true, really, as Watson and Crick had solved a fundamental mystery of science, how it was possible for genetic instructions to be passed from generation to generation. Watson and Crick's solution was formally announced on April 25, 1953, following its publication in Nature magazine. This article revolutionized the study of biology and medicine.
Among the developments entre losarroyos that followed directly from it were prenatal screening for disease genes, genetically engineered foods, the ability to identify human remains, and the accurate testing of physical evidence in order to convict or exonerate criminals. So these guys are responsible for so many advancements in the field of not only medicine, but criminology, nutrition, and many other fields, I'm sure. And that was only like 70 years ago. That's one lifetime.
It's crazy to put these advancements, so Savances, into perspective like this. Okay, I have one more. This one is maybe my favorite. It's not as important as the other two, but I just think it's funny. This one happened on the 27th of February, but in the year 1964. It says, Italian government asks for suggestions on how to fix Leaning Tower of Pisa.
So on February 27, 1964, the Italian government announces that it is accepting suggestions on how to save the renowned or famous Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapse. The top of the 180-foot tower was hanging colgando 17 feet south off the base, and studies showed that the tilt was increasing by a fraction every year. Experts warned that the medieval building, one of Italy's top touristic attractions, was in serious danger of toppling or falling over in an earthquake or storm.
Proposals to save the Leaning Tower arrived in Pisa from all over the world, but it was not until 1999 that successful restorative work began. So they literally had no idea what to do, so they just asked people. They sort of crowdfunded the idea to see who could come up with Aquincele Gurialgo to save the tower from falling. It continues and says, in recent years, it has been determined that the tower's lean is caused by the remains of an ancient river estuary located under the building.
The ground is made up in large part of water and sand, and one side of the heavy marble building began gradually sinking into the ground as soon as the foundation was laid. In 1934, Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, decided that the leaning tower was an inappropriate symbol for masculine fascist Italy. And in an attempt to reverse the tilt, engineers drilled holes, agujeros, into the foundation of the tower, and some 200 tons of concrete was poured in.
But then the tower quickly fell another few inches. Hilarious. Or tragic, depending on the perspective, I guess. In 1964, the Italian government publicly asked for suggestions on how to save the tower from what they believed was a forthcoming collapse. Forthcoming means soon to come, so they thought the tower would soon fall over. Two years later, a restorative attempt was aborted or cancelled when the tower tilted another fraction south.
In 1985, then another attempt also caused an increase to the lien. In 1990, the Italian government closed the leaning tower's doors to the public out of safety concerns and began considering more drastic proposals to save the tower. So they kept trying and trying, but nothing was working until the year 2000, where they did something really drastic and started removing soil, quitando tierra, and adding cables to harness or stabilize the tower.
Eventually it started working and they were able to correct the tilt a little bit. Nowadays, hoy en día, you can visit, you can walk up and everything. But most people like to just take funny pictures in front of it, which is what I would do too, if I'm being honest. Alright, that's it for today's show. I hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow there will be a brand new accent challenge out, so stay tuned and get your ears ready.
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