28 DECEMBER
In Music History
1975 Ted Nugent has a .44 Magnum gun pulled on him at a concert in Spokane, Washington, until the man is wrestled to the ground by security.
1974 Helen Reddy lands her third #1 hit in America when "Angie Baby" goes to the top.
1972 Mick Jagger visits Managua, Nicaragua, with his wife Bianca, searching for her mother after a devastating recent earthquake that claimed thousands of lives. Fortunately, Bianca's mother is fine.
1971 Max Steiner, known for composing iconic film scores for Casablanca and Gone With The Wind, among others, dies of congestive heart failure at age 83.
1971 Sha Na Na makes the big time tonight, headlining Carnegie Hall with host Keith Moon of The Who (a huge fan of the group, as it turns out).
1970 John Lennon releases "Mother."
1965 Elvis Presley and his girlfriend Priscilla try LSD for the first, and last, time at his Graceland mansion.
1963 Teen idol Bobby Vee marries his first and only wife, Karen Bergen, in Orchard Lane, Michigan.
1963 The magazine The New Yorker publishes an interview with Beatles manager Brian Epstein in their "Talk Of The Town" column about the band's upcoming Ed Sullivan gig - the first major press the group has received in the US.
1963 German composer Paul Hindemith dies of pancreatitis at age 68.
1962 Michel Petrucciani is born in Orange, France. Despite suffering from a genetic condition that stunts his growth and leaves him with brittle bones, he becomes a renowned jazz pianist.
1961 Jazz singer-songwriter Christine Collister is born on the Isle of Man in the UK.
1959 Frankie Avalon's "Why" hits #1.
1950 Alex Chilton of The Box Tops and Big Star is born in Memphis, Tennessee.
1948 Joseph "Ziggy" Modeliste (drummer for The Meters) is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Florida Hosts The First Major East Coast Rock Festival
1968Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac, Steppenwolf and the Grateful Dead, land in Hallandale, Florida's Gulfstream Park to entertain 100,000 fans at Miami Pop Festival II, the East Coast's first major rock festival.
Read more28 DECEMBER
Featured Events
2015 Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister dies of cancer. He got the diagnosis two days after turning 70, and died two days later.
2003 Out on bail and awaiting trial on charges he molested a teenage boy, Michael Jackson proclaims his innocence on 60 Minutes, telling Ed Bradley, "I was outraged. I could never do something like that."
1993 Shania Twain and superproducer Mutt Lange get married. In 2001, they have a son named Eja, but divorce in 2010 after Lange takes up with Twain's best friend.
1983 Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys dies after diving into very cold water from a boat slip in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles.
1968 The Beatles' ninth studio album, The Beatles (aka The White Album), hits #1 in America.
1963 Merle Haggard makes his first appearance on the country chart with "Sing A Sad Song," which peaks at #19.
1960 The Connie Francis movie Where The Boys Are is released. The movie - risqué for its time - is about four college girls on Spring Break. It leads to a whole genre of Spring Break movies and popularizes Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where it was shot, as the destination of choice.
1944 Leonard Bernstein scores his first big hit when his musical On The Town, featuring the song "New York, New York," opens on Broadway.
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