In 1968, Diana Ross interrupted a set by the Supremes at the Royal Command Variety Performance in London to make a plea for racial harmony. The crowd applauded for two minutes.

In 1976, the first Sex Pistols’ single, “Anarchy in the U-K,” was released. A few days later, members of the band were goaded into profanities during a British television interview. The incident made the Sex Pistols front page news in British papers, and marked the start of the punk movement. Most of the group’s concerts on their first British tour were cancelled, and their record company, EMI, dropped them two months later.

In 1979, Chuck Berry was released from a prison farm in Lompoc, California after serving two months for tax evasion.

In 1991, rocker Billy Idol was charged in Los Angeles with misdemeanor assault and battery for allegedly punching a woman in the face in the back seat of a car. Idol admitted to police that he’d had several drinks and later pleaded guilty. He was fined $2,000 and ordered to campaign against drug and alcohol abuse.

In 1992, songwriter Bobby Russell, the composer of “Little Green Apples,” “Honey” and “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” died in Nicholasville, Kentucky, of heart disease. He was 52.

In 1995, a six-hour “Beatles Anthology”‘ TV special began airing in the U-S and Canada. The first segment included the debut of the first new Beatles song in 25 years, “Free as a Bird.” The tune used vocal tracks that John Lennon recorded just before his death in 1980.