24 MARCH
Featured Events
2008 Britney Spears makes the first of two appearances on How I Met Your Mother, playing a receptionist smitten with Josh Radnor's character, Ted.
2000 Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes get divorced three months before releasing their second album, De Stijl. Despite the split, their musical partnership continues until 2011.
1979 Disco is still going strong as the Bee Gees' "Tragedy" hits #1 in the US.
1973 A fan shouting "Leather!" jumps on stage and bites Lou Reed in the butt during a concert in Buffalo. The fan is ejected and Reed is left with a sore posterior.
1972 The Godfather opens in theaters. Musically significant because the character Johnny Fontane is supposedly based on Frank Sinatra, and because "Godfather of..." becomes a common musical honorific.More
24 MARCH
In Music History
2026 Miley Cyrus revisits Hannah Montana for a Disney+ 20th anniversary special. Former cast members, along with stars like Selena Gomez and Chappell Roan, join Cyrus in sharing memories of the show, which ran from 2006 to 2011 and starred Cyrus as a schoolgirl who was secretly a rock star. Cyrus debuts a new song on the special called "Younger You," written in the form of a letter from her younger self.
2020 Producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland face off in the first Verzuz battle, where songwriters, producers and artists take turns performing their hits and are judged by an online audience. The series quickly becomes very popular, regularly drawing virtual audiences in the six figures. Popular battles include Gladys Knight vs Patti LaBelle, Teddy Riley vs Babyface, and Erykah Badu vs Jill Scott.
2010 Rock photographer Jim Marshall dies at age 74.
2009 Prince launches Lotusflow3r.com, which for $77 subscriptions, offers access to his videos and music. It shuts down after a year.
2009 Motown drummer Uriel Jones dies at age 74.
2007 Country singer Henson Cargill, known for the 1968 hit "Skip A Rope," dies during surgery at age 66.
2006 Hannah Montana, starring Miley Cyrus as a middle school student who is secretly a pop star, debuts on Disney Channel. Cyrus, 13 years old and best known as the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, becomes a pop star in real life when the show becomes a huge hit and spawns a #1 soundtrack.More
2005 After Carrie Underwood performs "Alone" on American Idol, Simon Cowell, by far the harshest critic on the panel, predicts she will win the competition and sell more records than any previous Idol winner. He's right: She becomes the first country singer to win and ends up surpassing Kelly Clarkson as the best-selling alum of the show.
2001 After being dubbed Worst Actress of the Century a year earlier, Madonna lands her fifth Razzie for Worst Actress, for her role as Abbie Reynolds in The Next Best Thing, at the 21st Golden Raspberry Awards.
2001 John Connolly of Sevendust marries Lori Kirkley.
2001 "Duane Allman Boulevard" is dedicated in Macon, Georgia, near where he died in a motorcycle crash.
2000 MTV debuts the reality series Making the Band, with the first season spawning the boy band O-Town. Lou Pearlman, the creator of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, manages the group.
1997 Philadelphia soul singer Harold Melvin (of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes) dies at age 57, months after suffering a debilitating stroke.
1992 A Tribe Called Quest release "Scenario," with a guest verse by little-known 19-year-old rapper Busta Rhymes.
1992 Arrested Development release their debut album, 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of... It sells four million copies thanks to the hits "Tennessee," "People Everyday" and "Mr. Wendal."
Elvis Presley Enters The Army
1958Elvis Presley goes to the Memphis Draft Board and enters the United States Army.
After wrapping up his movie King Creole, Elvis reports to the Memphis Draft Board and joins 12 other recruits on a bus bound for Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital before heading to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, where he takes on the real-life role as Private Presley. Hundreds swarm the fort to bid farewell to the freshly sheared star, but Elvis leaves his fame behind with his lost locks. Determined to be treated like any other G.I. Joe, he tells the press: "The Army can do anything it wants with me." Despite the devastating death of his mother, Gladys, from a heart attack that August, Elvis makes good on his promise during basic training. While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, he commences advanced tank training and is soon shipped off to Friedberg, Germany, with the Third Armored 'Spearhead' Division. During his 18-month stint, Elvis is an exemplary soldier and earns medals for marksmanship in addition to sergeant's stripes. Unfortunately, he also picks up an amphetamine habit that will eventually contribute to his death. In the meantime, he meets 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, the stepdaughter of an Air Force captain, whom he'll marry in 1967. After two years of service, Sergeant Presley is honorably discharged from active duty on March 5, 1960. Of the experience, he tells Stars & Stripes magazine: "People were expecting me to mess up (laughs), to goof up in one way or another. They thought I couldn't take it and so forth, and I was determined to go to any limits to prove otherwise, not only to the people who were wondering, but to myself." Photo: National Archives
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