1989 In Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly spies on his future self, who is foolishly led into a shady business deal by his co-worker Douglas J. Needles, played by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
1988 Pop singer Janet Ertel (of The Chordettes) dies of cancer at age 75.
1986 "Human" by The Human League hits #1 in America.
1982 The British rock group Japan announces it is breaking up.
1980 Shawn Fanning, who upends the music industry when he launches Napster in 1999, is born in Brockton, Massachusetts.
1979 After taking three months off following the suicide death of his friend, the actor Freddie Prinze, Tony Orlando starts performing again when he plays a concert in San Carlos, California.
1978 Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is born Karen Orzolek in Busan, South Korea. She's raised in New Jersey when her family moves to America.
1976 Ville Valo, frontman of the gothic metal band HIM, is born in Helsinki, Finland.
1968 In Ireland, singer Marianne Faithfull, heavily addicted to cocaine, miscarries what was to be her second child, fathered by boyfriend Mick Jagger.
1965 Sen Dog of Cypress Hill is born Senen Reyes in Pinar del Rio, Cuba.
1965 The musical Man Of La Mancha, starring Richard Kiley, opens on Broadway.
1963 The Beatles release their second studio album, With The Beatles.
1963 Phil Spector (who is Jewish) releases A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, which he worked on all summer with his best musicians. US president John F. Kennedy is killed the same day, and the album suffers dismal sales, although some of the songs, including The Ronettes' version of "Frosty The Snowman," later become holiday favorites.
1961 The Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii premieres.
1961 Bob Dylan records six songs for his debut album: "Man Of Constant Sorrow," "Pretty Peggy-O," "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," "Gospel Plow," "Highway 51," and "Freight Train Blues."
Michael Hutchence of INXS dies in a Sydney hotel room in what the coroner rules a suicide. The famous frontman was just 37.
Read more2019 Pollstar publishes their list of the top touring artists of the 2010s in North America. U2 is on top with a gross of $1,038,104,132, followed by The Rolling Stones ($929,196,083), Ed Sheeran ($922,361,663), Taylor Swift ($899,627,048) and Bon Jovi ($868,715,392).
1975 "That's The Way (I Like It)" by KC & the Sunshine Band goes to #1 in America.
1968 The Beatles release The White Album, a double album that contains both the soothing "Blackbird" and discomfiting "Helter Skelter."
1965 Bob Dylan marries his first wife, Sara Lownds, in Nassau County, New York; as she is already pregnant with his first child, the marriage is kept a secret for the next two months. The couple would divorce in 1977.
1963 US president John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The incident inspires several songs, including Connie Francis' "In The Summer Of His Years" and The Beach Boys' "Warmth Of The Sun."
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