On this day today:
1928 - R&B singer Tony Williams (of The Platters) is born in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
1939 - R&B singer Ronnie White (of The Miracles) is born in Detroit, Michigan.
1942 - Allan Clarke (original lead singer of The Hollies) is born Harold Allan Clarke in Salford, Lancashire, England.
1950 - Agnetha Faltskog (of ABBA) is born in Jönköping, Småland, Sweden.
1951 - Everett Morton (drummer for The English Beat) is born in the West Indies.
1964 - The Beatles film the famous opening scene from their first movie, A Hard Day's Night, running away from several rabid female fans at London's Marylebone train station.
1966 - Alt rock guitarist Mike McCready (of Pearl Jam) is born in Pensacola, Florida.
1967 - Monkees fans march in London in protest of band member Davy Jones' announced induction into the Army. The teen heartthrob is eventually exempted from duty for being his family's main provider.
1971 - Chicago is the first American rock band to perform at Carnegie Hall.
1973 - Singer/superproducer Pharrell Williams is born in Virginia Beach, Virginia. As half of the hip-hop production duo The Neptunes, he's a prime architect of the popular music landscape of the 2000s.
1975 - Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You," with the most famous high note of the '70s, is the #1 hit in America.
1977 - David Bowie and Iggy Pop perform together on Dinah Shore's daytime show on NBC.
1978 - Duran Duran play their first live gig, in Birmingham, England. Singer Stephen Duffy leaves the band two years later and is replaced by Simon Le Bon - shortly before the band are signed to EMI records.
1980 - R.E.M. played their first ever gig when they appeared at St Mary's Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia. The show at this abandoned church was for a friend's birthday party.
1984 - Marvin Gaye's funeral takes place in Los Angeles, with Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Berry Gordy attending. Gaye died 4 days earlier when he was shot by his father during an argument.
1985 - Thousands of radio stations play "We Are The World" simultaneously at 10:50 a.m. EST. In the next few weeks, the song goes to #1 in America and the UK.
1988 - Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut album is released.
1994 - Kurt Cobain of Nirvana kills himself with a shotgun at age 27. His body isn't discovered until three days later when an electrician enters to install an alarm.
1998 - Prolific rock drummer Cozy Powell, who did time in Rainbow and Black Sabbath, dies at 50 when he crashes his car on the M4 near Bristol, England. He was racing to his girlfriend's house, who had called him distraught.
1998 - The Spice Girls performed their first ever-live UK concert when they appeared in front of a 9,000 strong audience in Glasgow, Scotland.
2002 - Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley dies after overdosing on heroin and cocaine. The 34-year-old singer had fallen into addiction and lost most contact with the outside world. His body isn't discovered until two weeks later, when police enter his apartment on April 19 after friends and associates report him missing.
2005 - Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas releases his debut solo album, …Something To Be, featuring the Top 10 hit "Lonely No More."
2008 - Toto breaks up after performing its final concert in Seoul.
2008 - Leona Lewis hits #1 in the US with "Bleeding Love." It's the first American hit for Lewis, who won the UK version of The X Factor in 2006.
2008 - Apple's iTunes overtook supermarket group Wal-Mart to become the largest music retailer in the US. Market research firm NPD said iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart in January and February if 12 downloads are considered equal to the sale of one CD album. iTunes had sold more than four billion songs since its launch in 2003.
2012 - The Philip Lynott Exhibition opens at the 02 in London, celebrating the legacy of the Thin Lizzy frontman.
2015 - Two days after Furious 7 is released in theaters, the "See You Again" video, featuring footage from the film, debuts on Facebook and Twitter. The next day, it is posted on YouTube, where it eventually breaks the record for most views, previously held by "Gangnam Style."
2016 - Canadian hip hop artist Drake released the single 'One Dance'. The track reached No.1 in ten countries including the US and topped the UK Singles Chart for 15 consecutive weeks, making it the joint-second longest consecutive No.1 in the country with Scottish band Wet Wet Wet's cover of 'Love Is All Around'. The track also became the most played song on streaming media service Spotify, with over 950 million individual streams.
2019 - The Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace is finally released in theaters, 47 years after it was recorded in 1972.
