| 86 | years ago | 1940 | Ginger Baker, drummer for Blind Faith and Cream, is born. |
| 86 | years ago | 1940 | Singer Johnny Nash is born in Houston, Texas. |
| 83 | years ago | 1943 | Don Fardon, singer of the original Indian Reservation is born. So is William Ashton, who was known as Billy J. Kramer of The Dakotas. |
| 81 | years ago | 1945 | Ian Gillan, vocalist for Deep Purple, is born. |
| 75 | years ago | 1951 | John Deacon, singer and bassist for Queen, is born. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | British heavy metal rocker Steve Grimmett is born. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | The Beatles begin their first North American concert tour at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. They would visit 26 cities. Also on this night's bill are The Righteous Brothers and Jackie de Shannon. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | The Beatles' All You Need Is Love hits #1 on the pop chart. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, Graham Nash, Marianne Faithfull, and Walker Brother Gary Leeds all sing backing vocals on the track. On the same day, Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen have a baby boy named Jason. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | The final Monkees TV show airs on NBC. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | Chicago starts a nine-week run at #1 on the album chart with Chicago V. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | NBC-TV presents The Midnight Special for the first time. John Denver is the host for the first show. Wolfman Jack is the show's announcer. The Midnight Special proves to be a ratings success. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Pirate World Music Radio (Holland) closes down after 10 years. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson are hitched in Malibu. The groom's minister-father presides and the best man is Bobby Neuwirth. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | The Sex Pistols start an undercover U. K. tour as The Spots, (an acronym for Sex Pistols on tour secretly). |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | The Commodores start a five-week run at #1 on the U. K. singles chart with Three Times A Lady. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Alicia Bridges enters the soul chart with I Love the Nightlife. Though the single will only reach as high as #31 in its seventeen weeks on the chart, the song's title will become a disco-era catch-phrase. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Bassist Dorsey Burnette, a member of the rockabilly band the Rock 'n' Roll Trio with his brother Johnny in the Fifties, dies of a heart attack in Canoga Park. He was 46. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | A crowd of 1,400 riots in Toronto when Alice Cooper cancels a show due to illness. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | Christopher Cross comes from nowhere and has one of the biggest hits of the year off his debut album which goes platinum on this date. He has three top fifteen hits, including the #1, Sailing. He will take home five Grammys in February. |
| 38 | years ago | 1988 | Hound Dog by Elvis Presley is named the most played record of all time on American Juke Boxes. |
| 29 | years ago | 1997 | Fleetwood Mac's reunion album The Dance is released. The disc is taken from two shows that were recorded live at a Warner Brothers soundstage a few months earlier. |
| 28 | years ago | 1998 | Priscilla Presley wins $75,000 in a defamation lawsuit against a man who claimed they had an affair before she married Elvis Presley. Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Curry rules that Lavern Currie Grant, a former Army buddy of Presley's, made false statements that were repeated and used as the source for the book Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley by Suzanne Finstad. Ms. Presley had long assured the world she was a virgin when she married The King. Grant is ordered to pay $75,000. Ms. Presley had sued for at least $10 million. Ms. Finstad wasn't sued. “I am very pleased that I have been vindicated by this judgment,” Ms. Presley says in a statement. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | A TV ad featuring the late Linda McCartney urging a boycott of fishing is banned by the British Advertising Clearance Centre. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | Frank Page, the longest-employed announcer who’s worked at KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana since Thanksgiving Day, 1947, adds his size-16 shoeprints to the “Walk of Stars” in Shreveport. The young Frank introduced up-and-coming stars like Elvis Presley, who made his first radio appearence on the station’s Louisiana Hayride show in 1954. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino plays herself in a cable television movie about her hardscrabble life. Her son plays the part of her rapist. |