Music History for
April 13


Today's:



1742 - George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" was first performed publicly, in Dublin, Ireland.

1816 - Composer Sir William Sterndale Bennett was born.

1958 - Van Cliburn of Kilgore, TX, earned 1st prize in the Soviet Union's Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow. He was the first American to win the award.

1967 - The Rolling Stones performed their first concert behind the Iron Curtain at the Palace of Culture in Warsaw, Poland.

1969 - Diana Ross appeared solo on Dinah Shore's NBC-TV special Like Hep.

1970 - Led Zeppelin became the first band to sell out the Montreal Forum.

1980 - The Broadway musical "Grease" closed after 3,883 performances.

1982 - David Crosby (Byrds, CSN) was arrested for the second time in three weeks for drugs in Dallas.

1985 - The single "We Are the World" hit #1 in the U.S.







1985 - The Grand Ole Opry debuted on television.

1994 - Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley announced that they were separating.

1999 - VH1 debuted their Internet radio station called VH1 at Work. The first webcast was the "Divas Live" concert.

1999 - Yoko Ono sued Frederic Seaman over personal effects of the late John Lennon. Seaman, a former assistant to Lennon, was accused of "an elaborate scheme" to "exploit Lennon's death by stealing priceless personal and sentimental items."

2000 - Heather Mills won $316,700 in damages for a 1993 accident that involved a British motorcycle officer. Mills, Paul McCartney's girlfriend, received the out-of-court-settlement without any admission of guilt for the loss of her left leg.

2000 - Gavin Rossdale (Bush) collapsed at the end of a show in Los Angeles. Tests were planned even though he was feeling much better the next day.

2000 - Metallica filed suit against Napster, the University of Southern California, Yale University and Indiana University for copyright infringement, unlawful use of digital audio interface device and violations of the Racketeering Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).