1882 : Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” debuts in Moscow.

1920 : In Detroit, what will become WWJ (950 AM) becomes the first radio station in America to start broadcasting.

1965 : The Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham and his partner Tony Calder launched Immediate records. Their first release was The McCoy’s ‘Hang On Sloopy’, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Nico (later to join Velvet Under ground), all attended the launch party. The label became the home of The Small Faces, Nice, Amen Corner and Chris Farlowe and a young producer – guitarist Jimmy Page.

1966 : The Beatles, touring America for the last time, were forced to cancel and reschedule their performance in Cincinnati’s open-air stadium, Crosley Field. Heavy rain (and no cover provided) made electrocution a virtual certainty if The Beatles had attempted to perform.

1967 : The New York Times reports on a pioneering method of noise reduction created by Dolby Labs which makes home recording on blank cassette tapes possible.

1968 : Bobby Darin, still traumatized by the recent assassination of his good friend, Senator Robert Kennedy, sells off his music publishing and production company, TM Music, for one million dollars.

1968 : The director of the University of Tennessee’s audio lab, Dr. David M. Lipscomb, reported that a guinea pig subjected over a three month period to 88 hours of Rock music recorded at a Knoxville disco at 120 decibels suffered acute damage to the inner ears. Steve Paul, the owner of a New York disco replied “Should a major increase in guinea pig attendance occur at The Scene, we’ll certainly bear their comfort in mind.”

1969 : Frank Zappa shuts down his Mothers of Invention – he will resurrect the band a few months later.

1969 : After finishing ‘I Want You, (She’s So Heavy), The Beatles worked on the running order for the Abbey Road album. A preliminary master tape was compiled, the medley was originally slated for side one of the album, and the placement of ‘Octopus’s Garden’ and ‘Oh! Darling’ were reversed from the final version. The album was to end with the slashed guitar chord that finishes ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. This was the last time all four Beatles were together in Abbey Road studios.

1970 : Creedence Clearwater Revival’s LP Cosmo’s Factory hits #1

1973 : Bruce Springsteen played the first of a seven night run at Oliver’s in Boston, Massachusetts playing two 60-minute sets each night.

1977 : The Emotions started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Best Of My Love’, it made No.4 in the UK.

1980 : John Lennon began recording his final album, ‘Double Fantasy’. It would be released on November 17th by the newly-formed Geffen Records and would win the 1982 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

1983 : Madness, Joan Jett, The Police and R.E.M. all appeared at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

1986 : Rick Allen drummer with Def Leppard made his first live appearance with the band after losing an arm in a car accident, when they appeared at the Monsters Of Rock Festival, Castle Donington, England.

1987 : Lindsey Buckingham, who had helped turn Fleetwood Mac into one of the biggest-selling groups of the Seventies, leaves the group after refusing to tour behind its latest album, Tango In The Night.

1987 : Alabama dedicates a section of its Interstate 65 highway as the Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway, a reference to one of his best-known songs. The fifty-mile stretch begins near his hometown of Georgiana and runs north to Montgomery, where he is buried.

1988 : Steve Winwood went to No.1 on the US album chart with his fifth solo album ‘Roll With It’. The title cut also topped the US singles charts.

1988 : Iron Maiden, Kiss, David Lee Roth, Megadeth, Guns N’ Roses and Helloween all appeared at this year’s ‘Monsters Of Rock’ Festival, Castle Donington, England. Two rock fans died while ‘slam dancing’ as Guns N’ Roses played.

1988 : At the Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington, England, two fans are killed during a set by Guns N’ Roses, whose frontman Axl Rose had implored the crowd, “Don’t f–kin’ kill each other.” With the ground wet and a record crowd of 107,000 at the festival, the surge of bodies during the set caused the two fans to be trampled or crushed to death.

1990 : Aerosmith appeared at the Marquee Club London. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page joined the band on stage for a blues jam.

1991 : Nirvana and Sonic Youth kicked off a joint European tour at Sir Henry’s Pub, Cork, Ireland.

1992 : A US Doctor filed a $35m lawsuit against the Southwest Bell phone company. He alleged that his wife died because he could not reach 911 due to all lines being jammed by demand of Garth Brooks concert tickets.

1997 : BBC TV aired the documentary ‘Oasis; Right Here Right Now’, with the group talking about their troublesome last year, plus performances of three new songs from the Manchester band.

2003 : Madame Tussauds in London opened an interactive Pop Idol display with a speaking waxwork of judge Simon Cowell. The waxwork made comments such as: ‘That was extraordinary. Unfortunately extraordinarily bad.’ ‘Do you really think that you could become a Pop Idol’ Well then you’re deaf.’ ‘Thank you. Goodbye and That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen.’

2004 : A man from Stoke-on-Trent, England, named Bryan Adams as the ‘other man’ in his divorce papers after years spent trying to cope with his wife’s obsession with the singer. Rob Tinsley said he had to live with a 6ft cut-out of Adams which stood at the foot of the bed and posters on the bedroom walls.

2005 : On what would have been Phil Lynott’s 56th birthday, a concert is held in Dublin featuring Thin Lizzy members Brian Downey, Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. Eric Bell, the original lead guitarist with Thin Lizzy, and Gary Moore share the lead on the classic “Whiskey In The Jar.”

2006 : The Rolling Stones played the first of two nights at Twickenham Stadium on their ‘A Bigger Bang’ world tour. Feeder and The Charlatans also appeared.

2007 : The funeral of Manchester music mogul and broadcaster, Tony Wilson was held at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Manchester. Peter Hook and Stephen Morris – two members of first Factory signing Joy Division, and later incarnation, New Order attended along with Happy Mondays front man, Shaun Ryder.

2008 : The daughter of late country star Johnny Cash called the use of her father’s name to endorse a US presidential candidate ‘appalling’. Country star John Rich implied Mr Cash would have backed Republican hopeful John McCain while appearing at a rally in Florida, according to media reports. Writing on her website, Roseanne Cash called the remarks ‘presumptuous’. ‘Even I would not presume to say publicly what I ‘know’ he thought or felt,’ she added.