On This Day April 18 Musical Milestones 1960 – The movie tune “Theme From a Summer Place, by Percy Faith, begins its ninth and final week on top of the pop chart. 1964 – The Beatles enjoy their third consecutive No. 1 hit with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” which holds the top spot for five weeks. 1970 – The Beatles’ “Let It Be” begins its second and final week as a No. 1 single. It is the last single released by the Fab Four while still officially considered an active group. 1984 – Michael Jackson undergoes surgery at an L.A. hospital for injuries sustained two months earlier when his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. 1987 – “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” by Aretha Franklin and George Michael, tops the Billboard Hot 100 and remains there for two weeks. 1992 – Def Leppard begins five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with “Adrenalize.” The album spawns three major hits, including “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad.” 1992 – Vanessa Williams kicks off her fifth and final week as a chart-topper with “Save the Best for Last.” 2009 – “Boom Boom Pow,” by The Black Eyed Peas, launches a 12-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song, from the band’s “The E.N.D.” album,” is nominated at the 52nd Grammy Awards for Best Dance Recording and wins Best Short Form Music Video. 2012 – An original and extremely rare 1963 mono copy of The Beatles’ “Please Please Me” album, signed by all four musicians, sells in an eBay auction for nearly $25,000. History Highlights 1906 – A powerful earthquake destroys large sections of San Francisco and sparks fires that burn for days. The death toll exceeds 3,000. 1923 – More than 74,000 fans attend opening day at the New York Yankees’ new home in the Bronx. Babe Ruth slams the door on the Boston Red Sox with a game-winning three-run homer and Yankee Stadium becomes known as “The House that Ruth Built.” 1955 – Legendary physicist Albert Einstein, who won the Nobel Prize for his General Theory of Relativity (E=mc2), dies at the age of 76. 1983 – A suicide bomber crashes a truck into the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, setting off a massive blast that kills 63 people. 1989 – Thousands of Chinese students take to the streets of Beijing to protest government policies and call for greater democracy. Similar demonstrations begin in other cities and universities across China. The movement culminates with the bloody Tiananmen Square Massacre that June. 2012 – Entertainment icon Dick Clark, best known for hosting “American Bandstand” — an influential music-and-dance show that aired nationally for more than three decades and helped bring rock and roll into the mainstream in the late 1950s — dies of a heart attack at 82. Affectionately called “America’s Oldest Teenager,” Clark also hosted ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” ringing in each new year from New York’s Times Square. 2014 – Sixteen Nepali mountaineering guides, most of them ethnic Sherpas, are killed by an avalanche on Mt. Everest, the Earth’s highest mountain. It is the single deadliest accident in the history of the Himalayan peak that lies between Nepal and China. Celebrity Birthdays 1946 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actress Hayley Mills (“Tiger Bay,” “Pollyanna,” “The Parent Trap,” “Whistle Down the Wind,” “Saved by the Bell”) 1947 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor James Woods (“The Onion Field,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Salvador,” “My Name is Bill W”) 1954 – Actor-comedian Rick Moranis (“Ghostbusters,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”) 1956 – Actor Eric Roberts (“King of the Gypsies,” “Star 80,” “Runaway Train,” “The Dark Knight,” “The Expendables”) 1963 – TV host and comedian Conan O’Brien 1984 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress America Ferrera (“Ugly Betty,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” “How to Train Your Dragon”) Own a Piece of This DaySHOP HERE: Let It Be The Beatles Adrenalize Def Leppard Images of America: 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Richard Hansen and Gladys Hansen American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire John A. Jackson Once Upon a Time in America Starring Robert De Niro, James Woods and Joe Pesci, and directed by Sergio Leone Conan O’Brien Believes Conan O’Brien READ MORE