| 101 | years ago | 1925 | Bill Haley is born. |
| 71 | years ago | 1955 | Baby Let's Play House becomes Elvis' first single to place on the national charts and hits #10 on the Country & Western charts. |
| 69 | years ago | 1957 | John Lennon meets Paul McCartney at a church picnic in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool. In the church basement between sets, 15-year-old McCartney teaches 16-year-old Lennon to play and sing Eddie Cochran's, Twenty Flight Rock and Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | To help recruit fans to the ballpark, and because of their “wildly enthusiastic and loyal” teenage fans, the New York Mets hire several rock & roll acts like Dee Dee Sharp and Chubby Checker to play before a game. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | The Beatles first film, A Hard Days Night premieres at the Pavilion Theatre in London. Crowds start lining up for the 9 P.M. show at 9 A.M.! The Fab Four don't see the flick until four days later. In the U.K., the film's soundtrack had already sold a million and a half copies in only nine days. It's reportedly the fastest selling album in British history. |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | The Jefferson Airplane is formed in San Francisco. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | During a show in Syracuse's War Memorial Hall, The Rolling Stones allegedly drag an American flag across the stage floor. Two days later, local authorities accused the group of desecrating the American flag. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | The New York Times reports The Beatles were booed two days earlier at the airport in Manila, Philippines after they failed to make a private appearance before President Marcos, his wife, and 300 Filipino children. The group claims they were not told of the engagement. Marcos makes a statement regretting the airport incident. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones is hospitalized after collapsing from “strain and fatigue.” Jones was awaiting trial for drug possession at the time. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and her daughter Kyoko are released from a Scotland hospital after being treated for injuries suffered in a car accident days before. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | New Orleans trumpeter and singer Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong dies. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | A new British band, Queen, releases its first single, Keep Yourself Alive. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | New Yorker Eddie Mahoney changes his name to Eddie Money. His debut album, Eddie Money, will give him two big hits: Two Tickets to Paradise and Baby Hold on to Me. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Composer, arranger, and producer Van McCoy dies of a heart attack. His biggest mark in the music biz was The Hustle. It turned out to be the biggest dance-craze record of the decade. He was 38. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | Thirty-six Ted Nugent fans are arrested at a Hollywood, Florida show for bottle throwing, pot smoking, and other offenses. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Kris Kristofferson makes a public apology after a plaque that was given to him by a Vietnam veteran's group is found in a trash can. Kristofferson got the plaque for playing at a Welcome Home benefit concert for veterans two days earlier with John Fogerty, Neil Diamond, and Stevie Wonder. Kristofferson will later donate $1000 to the Vietnamese Veterans Association. |
| 23 | years ago | 2003 | Skip Battin of The Byrds dies. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | Kenny Rogers and his wife Wanda become parents of identical twin boys. Justin Charles Rogers weighs in at 6 pounds, 10 ounces, and his brother Jordan Edward tips the scale at 5 pounds, 8 ounces. Mother Wanda is herself an identical twin, and twins run in Kenny's family, too. Kenny is 65 years old at the time, and has three other children from previous marriages. |
| 6 | years ago | 2020 | Country music crossover artist, firebrand, and fiddler Charlie Daniels, who had a hit with Devil Went Down to Georgia, dies of a stroke at age 83. |