August 20, 1969, was a Wednesday.

Hurricane Camille continues to drop rain on the Eastern Seaboard; Nelson County, Virginia, records between 27 and 30 inches, causing the worst flash flooding in the state’s history. Los Angeles newspapers contain several stories on the recent murders of actress Sharon Tate and six other people by persons unknown 11 days earlier.

The East Village Other, an underground newspaper in New York, publishes an eyewitness report from the Woodstock Music and Art Fair: “a few thousand of the absolutely most together and peaceful and loving and beautiful heads in the world are gathered in a grand tribal new beginning.” Photographer Richard Avedon takes a portrait of Andy Warhol fingering a scar left after he was shot a year earlier; in 2006, the photo will be valued at approximately $100,000.

In sports, the Buffalo Bills acquire quarterback Marlin Briscoe from Denver; the Bills will convert him to a wide receiver. The Chicago Cubs lose 6-2 to the Atlanta Braves, but continue to cruise along in first place, seven games ahead of the New York Mets, who beat San Francisco 6-0. WKPT, channel 19, signs on in Kingsport, Tennessee, giving the Tri-Cities area of Kingsport, Bristol, and Johnson City its first full-time ABC affiliate.

Food scientists from the University of WIsconsin perform tests on a 105-year-old crock of cheese recently salvaged from a shipwreck in Lake Michigan. (more…)

July 16, 1971, is a Friday. Life magazine reports on the three Soviet Soyuz 11 cosmonauts who died during re-entry on June 29; consumer advocate Bess Myerson is on the cover. Preparations continue for the Apollo 15 moon mission, which will launch in 10 days. Maryann Grelinger of Kansas City, Missouri, sends President Nixon a telegram in response to the announcement yesterday that he will visit China. It says, “Have fun in Red China. Hope they keep you.” At the Western White House in San Clemente, Nixon meets with the National Security Council to discuss the Middle East and South Asia. Demographers estimate that the population of the world has passed the four billion mark. Future actor Corey Feldman is born. Radio relay operator Rick Holt of Dundalk, Maryland, writes another letter to his parents from Vietnam. (During his year in Vietnam, Holt writes his parents nearly every day, sometimes more than once.) Jeanne M. Holm, director of Women in the Air Force, is promoted to brigadier general, becoming the first woman in the U.S. military with that rank.

NBC Nightly News reports the discovery of the Tasaday, a Stone Age people living in an isolated part of the Philippines. (Years later, some anthropologists accuse the discoverers of the Tasaday of perpetrating a hoax.) A paper titled “Fiber Digestion in the Beaver” is accepted for publication by the Journal of Nutrition. New movies for the weekend include The Hunting Party starring Candice Bergen and Gene Hackman and The Devils, directed by Ken Russell and originally given an X rating before cuts were made. Top movies already out include Shaft, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

Creedence Clearwater Revival plays in Boston. Duke Ellington plays at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Top 40 fans are enjoying one of the greatest weeks in history: a harmonic convergence of great radio records and superb summer songs is pumping out of AM radios everywhere. At WLS in Chicago, Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” tops the chart for a fourth week; James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” (which King wrote, and on which she plays) holds at Number Two. (more…)

June 18, 1983, is a Saturday. At 7:33 AM Eastern time, the space shuttle Challenger blasts off with a crew of five, including Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut. President Reagan salutes Ride in his weekly radio address and announces the re-appointment of Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker. In Texas, the Corpus Christi Midget Ocean Racing Fleet adopts its bylaws, and the Lubbock chapter of the American Cancer Society holds its first annual Cattle Baron’s Ball benefit. Martina Navratilova reaches the finals of the BMW Grass Court tennis tournament; she will make the finals of the next 22 events she enters, which is a record. Seventy-eight winners will split tonight’s $1.75 million Illinois Lotto jackpot, also a record; analysts credit the public’s love of the number seven: the winning numbers were 7, 13, 14, 21, 28, and 35. Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, holds its 125th spring commencement. Superman III, which opened around the country on Wednesday, is expected to be the top-grossing movie of the weekend, dethroning Return of the Jedi.

(more…)

It was 40 years ago this morning that many of us learned Robert F. Kennedy had been shot after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California. Even those not old enough to remember it have probably seen the film. The smiling Kennedy thanks his supporters and says, “Now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there”—then it’s a jump cut to chaos, screaming, Kennedy lying on the floor. The cursed year 1968 had claimed another victim and it wasn’t even half-over yet. The images still burn, and the memories haunt us.

So do the what-ifs. Kennedy vowed to end the war in Vietnam. No Democrat was better able to unite blacks and whites. Those two facts, combined with the belief that Kennedy would have won the Democratic nomination and defeated Richard Nixon in the fall, create the most poignant what-ifs in American history. Would there have been no slow-motion defeat in Vietnam? No Watergate scandal? A greater degree of racial harmony? The lost possibilities almost make RFK’s death seem more tragic than his brother’s five years earlier.

But would RFK have gotten the Democratic nomination in 1968? He had entered the campaign late, and even after his California win, he trailed Vice-President Hubert Humphrey in the delegate count. Furthermore, Lyndon Johnson, who had abdicated the presidency in March by deciding not to run for another term, still controlled the Democratic Party. He hated Kennedy, and some historians believe that if it had gotten close, Johnson would have used all his influence to deny Kennedy the nomination. Now, it’s at least plausible that had Johnson tried to ram Humphrey’s nomination through a closely divided Democratic convention, there would have been an open revolt on the floor. If it had come to that—without the open wound of Kennedy’s death fueling pain, despair, and rage—the drama at the Chicago convention might have been confined to the International Amphitheater instead of exploding in the streets. And the likelihood is that Kennedy would have ended his campaign not with a speech accepting the nomination, but by pledging to support the nominee Humphrey in November. (more…)

(Author’s note: Jason’s Chart Attack! from last week is the inspiration for this post. While we were listening to all that stuff, all this stuff was happening.)

May 21, 1985, was a Tuesday. By presidential proclamation, it is National Maritime Day, honoring the American merchant marine. It is also National Medical Transcriptionist Week. At the White House, Ronald Reagan meets with the president of Honduras. The Associated Press reports that the gross national product is expanding at the slowest rate since the 1981-82 recession. Hundreds of members of the Church of Scientology, including John Travolta, picket the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, to protest a $39 million fraud judgment against the church. In Orange, California, Patti Frustaci gives birth to the first set of septuplets ever born in the United States. (One is stillborn; three more will die.) Also born: future Florida Marlins pitcher Andrew Miller and Mutya Buena, future member of the Sugababes and collaborator with Amy Winehouse. Also dying: 10 people in Newton Falls, Ohio, killed by a tornado.

Ford Motor Company issues a recall on the 1985 Mercury Grand Marquis, the 1985 Mercury Capri, and the 1982 Ford Escort. The World Series of Poker wraps up in Las Vegas; Bill Smith wins $700,000 at the final table. A European patent is granted for an annular clamping member, which is used to attach a gear or pulley to a shaft, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throws out a Georgia law making sodomy a crime. On TV tonight, there’s the sitcom Hail to the Chief, about the first female president, played by Patty Duke. The made-for-TV movie Do You Remember Love? stars Joanne Woodward as a woman with Alzheimer’s disease, and an episode of the PBS documentary series Frontline looks at the challenges facing America’s growing senior-citizen population. The top-grossing theatrical movie of the week is Code of Silence starring Chuck Norris. Also in theaters: Beverly Hills Cop, Mask, Desperately Seeking Susan, Witness, Amadeus, The Care Bears Movie, and The Killing Fields.

The Eagles’ 1974 album On the Border is released on CD for the first time. Madonna plays St. Paul with the Beastie Boys opening. Three Dog Night plays Kansas City. Eric Clapton plays Toronto. Stephen Stills plays Davis, California. Phil Collins plays Hampton, Virginia. The Cash Box magazine chart for the week features a lot of music by new artists beyond the Top 10, including “You Give Good Love” by Whitney Houston, “Voices Carry” by ‘Til Tuesday, and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company have teamed up in a band they call the Firm. Their first hit, “Radioactive,” is slipping down the chart, but a new one, “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” is on the way up. Its video provides employment for a bevy of model wannabes and other actors, all of whom look sweaty. The band, oddly enough, does not.

In a small college town in Illinois, which is emptying out as the students leave for the summer, the young program director of the local Top 40 station is hearing almost all of these records several times a day, but he doesn’t mind. For the first time since graduating from college, he’s got the kind of job he really wants, and it feels like the sky’s the limit.

(Find a bonus edition of One Day in Your Life for this date here.)

April 16, 1981, was a Thursday. The nation’s front pages detail the story of Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke, who admitted yesterday that her Pulitzer Prize-winning series featuring an eight-year-old heroin addict was fiction. President Reagan pardons two FBI officials who had been convicted of illegally breaking into the homes of suspected anti-Vietnam radicals. (One of them, Mark Felt, will be revealed years hence as having been the Watergate informant Deep Throat.) In Canada, controversy over Quebec’s status as a province continues to rage as eight other provinces sign an agreement stating that Quebec does not have any special veto power over a proposed new constitution.

The final episode of the revived game show To Tell the Truth is taped. The final episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs after two seasons on NBC. Other shows on TV include Magnum P.I., Taxi, and the made-for-TV movie Midnight Lace. A life-size statue of Charlie Chaplin is unveiled in London’s Leicester Square on what would have been Chaplin’s 92nd birthday. The Oakland A’s (8-and-0) and Los Angeles Dodgers (6-and-0) are off to hot starts in the new baseball season; the Dodgers are led by rooking pitching sensation Fernando Valenzuela. Effa Manley, the last surviving owner of a franchise in the old Negro baseball leagues, dies at age 81. Future NFL offensive tackle Jake Scott is born. (more…)

March 19, 1976, is a Friday. Newspaper readers learn that Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho entered the presidential race yesterday, even though the race is well underway already. Also yesterday, Paul McCartney’s father, James, died at age 73, and the state of Kentucky officially ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. (It had rejected the amendment in 1865.) Today, closing arguments continue in the bank-robbery trial of heiress Patricia Hearst. In Sierra Madre, California, a bicentennial time capsule is buried under the flagpole of the city’s new police and fire building. The Garden State Rotary Club of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, holds its first meeting.

The Indiana Hoosiers defeat Alabama in the Mideast Regional semifinals of the NCAA basketball tournament. (On Sunday, they will qualify for the Final Four by beating Marquette, and will eventually win the national championship, going undefeated for the year.) Programs on TV tonight include The Rockford Files and Space: 1999. Celebrity guests on the recently renamed $20,000 Pyramid are Soupy Sales and All My Children actress Stephanie Braxton. Future TV actress Rachel Blanchard and future NBA player Andre Miller are born. Guitarist Paul Kossoff, formerly of Free and currently of Back Street Crawler, dies aboard an airplane flight after years of drug abuse; he’s 25.

Bette Midler plays Tarrytown, New York, the Electric Light Orchestra plays Boston, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band plays Kansas City, Kansas, Elvis Presley plays Johnson City, Tennessee, and Bad Company plays Dallas. On the Cash Box magazine chart for the week, “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen replaces the Miracles’ “Love Machine” at Number One. The hottest record on the chart is Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady,” blasting from 27 to 10 in its sixth week on. Also new to the Top 10 are “Sweet Thing” by Rufus at Number 7 and “Dream On” by Aerosmith at Number 8. Several hits that will last well into the bicentennial summer are further down the chart as well: Dorothy Moore’s “Misty Blue,” “Sara Smile” by Hall and Oates, and ELO’s “Strange Magic.” A teenager in southern Wisconsin continues his behind-the-wheel driver’s ed instruction in eager anticipation of getting his license within a few weeks; whenever he’s in the car, the radio is always on. And whenever he’s not.

“Disco Lady,” Johnnie Taylor
“Strange Magic” (live in Boston, 3/19/76), Electric Light Orchestra

February 20, 1980, is a Wednesday. At 12:01AM Eastern time, a deadline passes for the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, which they had invaded the previous December. They do not. Thus, the United States will boycott the upcoming Summer Olympics in Moscow. In hockey at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, Team USA defeats West Germany 4-2 to advance to the medal round. On Friday, the Americans will face the Soviet Union; nobody gives them a chance to win. The European Community places a tariff on certain types of synthetic carpet yarn shipped into the UK. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, dies at 96; the Washington socialite is said to have once remarked, “if you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” At the White House, President and Mrs. Carter host a state dinner for the president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moy. An experimental onion field at Oregon State University is fertilized. With the New Hampshire primary just five days away, a CBS/New York Times poll notes that many supporters of Republican candidate George Bush don’t know what he stands for.

TV shows on the air tonight include Charlie’s Angels, Diff’rent Strokes, and Hello Larry. Steve Martin sits in for Johnny on The Tonight Show; his guest is Andy Kaufman. Iggy Pop plays Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. In the UK, Peter Gabriel plays Exeter University and Joy Division plays High Wycombe. The Joy Division show will be released in 2007 as part of the two-disc reissue of Still. In the early-morning hours, after a night of partying, a friend puts Bon Scott of AC/DC into his car to sleep it off. Returning later in the day, the friend finds Scott lifeless. At a hospital, Scott is pronounced DOA.

On the Cash Box magazine record chart for the week, the disco tide continues to recede. Several significant bands rock the Top 40, including Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Eagles, Styx, and Led Zeppelin. A couple of pop acts who haven’t scored major hits since 1971 are back on the radio as well: the no-longer-Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band’s “An American Dream” is at Number 14, and “Three Times in Love” by Tommy James is at Number 41. At a small college town in Wisconsin, a future Popdose contributor and longtime Tommy James fan is glad about that.

“Sara,” Fleetwood Mac (download)
“An American Dream,” Dirt Band (download)
“Three Times in Love,” Tommy James (download)