• 1834 ~ Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer
More information about Ponchielli

• 1903 ~ Arthur (Morton) Godfrey, Ukulele playing, TV/radio entertainer

 1918 ~ Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist for the musical theater Read quotes by and about Lerner
More information about Lerner

• 1939 ~ Jerry Allison, Drummer with The Crickets

• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra recorded All or Nothing at All with the Harry James Band. The tune failed to become a hit until four years later – after Ol’ Blue Eyes had joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

• 1945 ~ Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-born American violinist, recorded with André Previn and Scott Joplin

• 1945 ~ Van Morrison, Songwriter, singer with Them

• 1955 ~ Anthony Thistlethwaite, Saxophone with The Waterboys

• 1957 ~ Glenn Tilbrook, Guitar, singer, songwriter with Squeeze

• 1959 ~ Tony DeFranco, Singer with The DeFranco Family

• 1970 ~ Debbie Gibson, Singer

• 1976 ~ A judge ruled that George Harrison was guilty of copying from the songHe’s So Fine (a 1963 Chiffons hit). The judge said that the chorus to Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was identical to He’s So Fine and it eventually (appeals went on for about five years) cost the former Beatle over half a million dollars.

• 1987 ~ This day saw the largest preorder of albums in the history of CBS Records. 2.25 million copies of Michael Jackson’s Bad album were shipped to record stores. The LP followed in the tracks of the Jackson album, Thriller, the biggest Jackson-seller of all time (35 million copies sold). The Bad album was successful, but sold only 13 million copies.