On This Day

A judge rules that when George Harrison wrote “My Sweet Lord,” he plagiarized The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine, written by Ronnie Mack. The crime costs the ex-Beatle $1.6 million for what the court calls “subconscious plagiarism.”

The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News marks its second and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

American swimmer Mark Spitz speeds his way to an unprecedented seven Gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion, Dodi Al-Fayed, die in a Paris car crash while being pursued at high speed by photographers on motorbikes. The tragedy leaves the world shocked and saddened.

Singer-songwriter Van Morrison (“Brown Eyed Girl,” “Moondance”)

Golden Globe-winning actor Richard Gere (“American Gigolo,” “An Officer and A Gentleman,” “Pretty Woman,” “Primal Fear,” “Chicago,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Arbitrage”)

Get Down Tonight by KC and the Sunshine Band gets up to No. 1 on the pop chart.

“Sailing” by Christopher Cross is the hottest single. It goes on to capture Grammy Awards for Song of the Year, Arrangement of the Year, and helps Cross capture the Best New Artist award.

The U.S. Senate confirms Thurgood Marshall as the first African American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tom Brokaw becomes the news anchor of NBC’s “Today” show.

Actor David Paymer (“Mr. Saturday Night,” “Quiz Show,” “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” “City Slickers,” “Crazy People,” “Get Shorty,” “The American President,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” “Drag Me to Hell”)

Actor David Paymer (“Mr. Saturday Night,” “Quiz Show,” “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” “City Slickers,” “Crazy People,” “Get Shorty,” “The American President,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” “Drag Me to Hell”)

New music hits the radio airwaves. It’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison, which reaches No. 1 a month later.

Where Did Our Love Go by The Supremes holds tight for a second straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart.

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans as a Category 3 storm and enters the history books as costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes to strike the U.S.

German mechanical engineer Gottlieb Daimler patents the motorcycle.

King of Pop, Michael Jackson

Actress Rebecca De Mornay (“Risky Business,” ” Runaway Train,” “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Backdraft,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”)

The Marvelettes release their first single, “Please Mr. Postman,” which sells over a million copies and becomes the group’s biggest hit. It reaches the top of both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B survey, becoming Motown’s first chart-topper.

The Bee Gees enjoy their fourth and final week at No. 1 on the pop chart with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.”

A quarter of a million people participate in the March on Washington, a peaceful civil rights rally during which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Oscar-winning director John Huston, known for such cinematic classics as “The Maltese Falcon,” “Key Largo,” “The African Queen,” “Moulin Rouge” and “The Misfits,” dies of pneumonia at age 81.

Grammy-winning country music singer-songwriter Shania Twain (“You’re Still the One,” “From This Moment On,” “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”, “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!”, “Forever and for Always”)

Actor-comedian-musician Jack Black (“Shallow Hal,” “High Fidelity,” “School of Rock,” “Tropic Thunder,” the “Kung Fu Panda” movies, “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Goosebumps”)

Beatles manager Brian Epstein, considered “the fifth Beatle” by some, dies of a drug overdose at the age of 32.

“Every Breath You Take” by The Police, from the band’s “Synchronicity” album, ends an eight-week run as the hottest single.

“Roman Holiday,” featuring Audrey Hepburn in her first starring movie role, premieres in New York City.

Sixty-five-year-old Francis Chichester sets sail from Plymouth, England aboard his yacht, Gipsy Moth IV, on what becomes the first solo around-the-world trip by sea. He completes the voyage nine months and one day later with only a single stop in Sydney, Australia, and is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Daryl Dragon, the keyboard-playing half of the Captain & Tennille

Golden Globe-winning actress Tuesday Weld, born Susan Ker Weld (“Play It As It Lays,” “Looking For Mr. Goodbar,” “The Winter of Our Discontent,” “Once Upon a Time in America”)

Looking Glass is captain of the singles chart with “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).”

The No. 1 single comes from the “Batman Forever” soundtrack. It’s Seal with “Kiss From a Rose,” which goes on to capture Grammys for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, dies of cancer in Hawaii at the age of 72.

The Yugo, the Yugoslavian-built compact car that Americans loved to hate, is introduced to the U.S. market.

Mother Teresa

“Washington Post” VP at-large Ben Bradlee, who oversaw publication of stories that ultimately exposed the Watergate scandal

One-hit-wonder Stories has the most popular song on the radio with “Brother Louie.”

Bruce Springsteen releases his breakthrough album “Born to Run.”

MGM Studios’ “The Wizard of Oz” premieres, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. It and “Gone With The Wind,” which was released later that year, are the first major motion pictures to use Technicolor at a time when films were shot in black and white.

Samantha Smith of Maine, the 11-year-old “ambassador” to the Soviet Union, dies in a plane crash. Smith was best known for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and visiting as Andropov’s guest in 1983.

Grammy and Tony-winning composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein (“West Side Story,” “Peter Pan,” “Candide,” “Wonderful Town,” “On the Town,” “On The Waterfront”)

Emmy and Golden Globe-winning director Tim Burton (“Beetlejuice,” “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ed Wood,” “Big Fish,” “Alice in Wonderland”)

Stevie Wonder becomes the first artist ever with both a No. 1 album and single in the same week. His No. 1 album is “Little Stevie Wonder / The 12 Year Old Genius” and No. 1 single is “Fingertips Part 2.” And if that’s not enough, it’s also the first ever live recording to top the singles chart.

“The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News, and featured in the movie “Back To The Future,” kicks off two weeks on top of the singles chart. The track receives an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song at the 58th Academy Awards, but loses to Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me.”

Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of musical great John Lennon eight months earlier.

Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing about 20,000 people. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash and mud, were never rebuilt.

Golden Globe-winning actress Anne Archer (“Paradise Alley,” “Short Cuts,” “Patriot Games,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Man of the House,” “Fatal Attraction”)

Actor-comedian Steve Guttenberg (“Diner,” “The Day After,” “Police Academy,” “Cocoon,” “Short Circuit,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “The Big Green”)

The Rolling Stones begin a four-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Honky Tonk Women.”

“Fallin’ in Love” by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds is the hottest single in America.

Silent film idol Rudolph Valentino dies in New York at the age of 31.

Actress Barbara Eden, who starred in TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie” from 1965-1970

Actress Barbara Eden, who starred in TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie” from 1965-1970

Actor-comedian Jay Mohr (“Saturday Night Live,” “Jerry Maguire,” “200 Cigarettes,” “Pay It Forward,” “Scrubs,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show”)

Where Did Our Love Go by The Supremes starts a two-week hold on top of the singles chart. It’s the girl group’s first No. 1 hit.

Bread’s “Make It With You” begins one week on top of the Billboard singles survey.

Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to ride in an automobile when he sets out from Connecticut on a driving tour of New England.

The U.S. yacht America, representing the young New York Yacht Club, wins the first America’s Cup. It would be well over 100 years before it was taken away from New York.

Award-winning fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery author Ray Bradbury, who wrote “The Martian Chronicles” and “Fahrenheit 451”

Actress-comedian Kristen Wiig (“Saturday Night Live,” “Knocked Up,” “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” “Bridesmaids,” “Girl Most Likely,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Skeleton Twins,” “The Martian,” “Ghostbusters”)