Today in 1964, EMI Records rejected a group called the Hi-Numbers after its audition. Who? That’s the group’s current name:

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Today in 1960, Roy Orbison had his first number one single:

Today in 1962, the number one single in the U.S. was a song banned by the BBC:

The number one single today in 1973 …

… which bumped off this classic …

… which made an eight-year-old TV viewer’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.

Today in 1977, four members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and two others were killed when their plane crashed near McComb, Miss.:

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We begin with one of the stranger episodes of live radio, Arthur Godfrey’s on-air firing of one of his singers today in 1953:

The number 28 song today in 1959 was customized for sales in 28 markets, including Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh and San Francisco:

That was 27 positions lower than number one:

The number one British album today in 1967 was not the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”; it was the soundtrack to “The Sound of Music,” two years after the movie was released, on the soundtracks’ 137th week on the charts:

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The number one song today in 1969:

Britain’s number one single today in 1979 probably would have gotten no American notice had it not been for the beginning of MTV a year later:

The number one album today in 1986 was Huey Lewis and the News’ “Fore”:

The City of Los Angeles declared today in 1990 “Rocky Horror Picture Show Day” in honor of the movie’s 15th anniversary, so …

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The number one song today in 1960:

The number one song today in 1964:

The number one song today in 1970:

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Today in 1972, Creedence Clearwater Revival split up:

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What an appropriate number one single today in 1964:

The number one single today in 1966:

Today in 1971, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden in New York when he dared to sing new material at a concert. The reaction to his not singing what the crowd wanted to hear prompted him to write …

If I told you the number one British album today in 1983 was “Genesis,” I would have given you the artist and the title:

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The number one song today in 1957 was the Everly Brothers’ first number one:

The number one British single today in 1960 was a song originally written in German sung by an American:

The number one album today in 1967 is about an event that supposedly took place on my birthday:

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