1969: Cindy Birdsong of The Supremes was kidnapped at knifepoint by a maintenance man who worked in the building she lived in. She later escaped unharmed by jumping out of his car on the San Diego freeway. The kidnapper was arrested in Las Vegas four days later.
1976: The first day of the photo shoot for the forthcoming Pink Floyd ‘Animals’ album cover took place at Battersea Power Station in London, England with a giant inflatable pig lashed between two of the structure’s tall towers. A trained marksman was hired ready to fire if the inflatable escaped, but was not needed on this, the first day. Unfortunately the following day the marksman hadn’t been rebooked, so when the inflatable broke free from its moorings, it was able to float away, eventually landing in Kent where it was recovered by a local farmer, reportedly furious that it had ‘scared his cows.’
1978: Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand’s ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’ was at No.1 on the US singles chart. A radio station engineer had spliced together Neil’s version with Barbra’s version and got such good response, the station added it to their playlist. When Neil Diamond was told about it, he decided to re-record the song with Streisand herself, and within weeks of its release, the single went to No.1 in the US and No.5 in the UK.
1983: MTV aired the full 14-minute version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video for the first time. Now regarded as the most influential pop music video of all time, in 2009, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, the first music video to ever receive this honor, for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.
2000: Thieves broke into the London home Madonna shared with Guy Ritchie. The raiders forced their way in through a basement door then took a set of car keys before loading up Guy Ritchie’s car with some of the couple’s possessions and driving off.
