| 83 | years ago | 1943 | Composer Vangelis is born. |
| 64 | years ago | 1962 | Gene Chandler receives a gold record for the biggest hit of his career, Duke of Earl. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction and Porno For Pyros, is born. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show get their wish as their smiling faces appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, just as the group had hoped for in its Top Ten hit The Cover of the Rolling Stone, which goes gold six days later. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Labelle's Lady Marmalade, already holding the #1 spot on the R&B chart, reaches #1 on the pop chart, where it stays for one week. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Led Zeppelin registers all six of its albums on the charts simultaneously, a feat never before made in pop history. For the record, coming after its chart-topping current release, Physical Graffiti, are: Led Zeppelin IV at #83, Houses of the Holy at #92, Led Zeppelin II at #104, Led Zeppelin at #116 and Led Zeppelin III at #124. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | December, 1963 (Oh What a Night), the Four Seasons' first #1 hit since Rag Doll in 1964, is certified gold. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | Sweden's Abba receives a gold record for its only U.S. #1, Dancing Queen, a song perfectly timed for the disco era. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | David Bowie's first tour in two years starts in San Diego, California. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | Ronald Selle, a Chicago antique dealer and part-time musician and songwriter files suit in Chicago against the Bee Gees, Paramount Pictures, and Polygram Records. Selle alleges the Bee Gees' How Deep is Your Love plagiarized two sections of a song he wrote and sent to 14 record companies, Let it End. He wins his case even though the Bee Gees claim they never heard Selle's song and the whole thing was a coincidence. The group successfully appeals the decision in 1983. |
| 33 | years ago | 1993 | The Supreme Court announces it would use a case involving 2 Live Crew to decide whether copyright holders can ban song parodies. The Miami rappers later win their dispute with Acuff-Rose music over their takeoff of Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | The David Bowie Radio Network makes it debut on the Internet for Rolling Stone Radio. The format is essentially all of Bowie's favorite songs. He introduces each track. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | Singer Tom Jones is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace at the age of 65. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | Songwriters for Britney Spears accuse South Korean composer Kim Dohyun of partially plagiarizing the song they wrote for Britney entitled Do Something, which was released in February of 2005. They say the song Get ya, the lead song on Lee Hyolee’s second album released just last month, sounds a lot like Do Something. Kim says he was inflenced by the Spears song, but didn’t directly copy it. |
| 10 | years ago | 2016 | Patty Duke, the actress who won fame with her stage and screen portrayals of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, and the singer who charted twice in 1965 with Don't Just Stand There and Say Something Funny, dies at age 69 from sepsis due to a ruptured intestine. |