| 85 | years ago | 1940 | John Lennon, guitarist for The Beatles, is born. |
| 81 | years ago | 1944 | John Entwistle, bassist with The Who, is born. |
| 77 | years ago | 1948 | Jackson Browne is born. |
| 67 | years ago | 1958 | Eddie Cochran records C'mon Everybody. |
| 66 | years ago | 1959 | At the age of 22, Bobby Darin is the youngest performer to headline at the Sands Hotel's Copa Room in Las Vegas. The previous record-holder, Johnny Mathis, did at 23. |
| 64 | years ago | 1961 | Roy Orbison's Crying peaks at #2 on the pop singles chart. |
| 61 | years ago | 1964 | The Rolling Stones announce the cancellation of a planned South African tour due to an anti-apartheid embargo by the British Musicians' Union. |
| 60 | years ago | 1965 | The Miracles' My Girl Has Gone enters the Hot 100 where it will go as high as #14 in ten weeks. It's the Motown vocal group's 20th pop chart entry. |
| 60 | years ago | 1965 | Marvin Gaye's Ain't That Peculiar becomes his 12th to enter the Hot 100. The song will stay on the chart for twelve weeks, reaching as high as #8. |
| 59 | years ago | 1966 | Concluding a tour of Great Britain at London's Royal Albert Hall, the Rolling Stones record their first live album, Got Live if You Want It. It's notable chiefly for the din of the audience which all but drowns out the band. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | Radio DJ Murray the K is fired from WOR-FM, New York because of his “inability to live with direction.” The direction was coming from programming consultant and format-radio pioneer Bill Drake. |
| 54 | years ago | 1971 | Van Morrison's Wild Night is released. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | Elvis and Priscilla Presley divorce after six years of marriage. She gets a big chunk of property; $725,000, and an additional $4,200 a month for the support of their five-year old daughter, Lisa Marie; half the proceeds from the planned sale of an L.A. home; and five percent of the total outstanding stock in two publishing companies. The couple emerges from a Santa Monica, California courthouse arm-in-arm. They kiss, then depart separately. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | Olivia Newton John earns her third gold record for I Honestly Love You. It made it to the top spot on the pop chart four days ago and will remain for two weeks. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | Composer, arranger and producer Quincy Jones, who has all ready taken home some Grammy awards, gets his first gold record for Body Heat which contains the hit single, If I ever Lose This Heaven. It is sung by Minnie Ripperton. |
| 50 | years ago | 1975 | Sean Lennon is born. |
| 50 | years ago | 1975 | John Lennon continues to have a good week. After the immigration ruling in his favor only two days before, he and his wife Yoko celebrate his 35th birthday with the birth of their only child, Sean Ono Lennon. |
| 49 | years ago | 1976 | The Who and The Grateful Dead co-headline a concert at the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium. |
| 47 | years ago | 1978 | RCA Records releases David Bowie's double album Stage, a document of his U.S. tour featuring both his early pop, rock, and soul stuff and his more recent experimental material. |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | Styx's Babe is born. |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | John Lennon celebrates his 40th birthday by releasing Starting Over, his first record in five years. His wife, Yoko Ono commissions a sky writer to etch him a “Happy Birthday” message over New York City's skyline. |