Apple launches iTunes, revolutionising how people consume music On 9 January 2001, Apple launches iTunes, a media player that revolutionized the way people consumed digital media. Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin, two former Apple employees, developed an MP3 player called SoundJam MP in the late 1990s. In 2000, Apple re-hired them and their partner, Dave Heller, to work on a similar player that would come standard with Apple computers. […]
Shirley Bassey One of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the twentieth century, Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey is a Welsh singer best known for recording the theme song to three James Bond movies: Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, and Moonraker. Born the youngest child to Nigerian Henry Bassey and Englishwoman Eliza Jane Start on 8 January 1937, in Cardiff, Wales, her career began in the mid-1950s. From a young age, her […]
07 January 1955 - Marian Anderson becomes first African American to perform at the Met Opera On the evening of 7 January 1955, the curtain at the Metropolitan Opera in New York rises to reveal Marian Anderson, the first African American to perform with the Met. By then, Anderson was in the twilight of a career that was equal parts acclaimed and hamstrung by racism. First noticed by […]
Dizzy Gillespie, by name of John Birks Gillespie, (born October 21, 1917, Cheraw, South Carolina, U.S.—died 6 January 1993, Englewood, New Jersey), American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who was one of the seminal figures of the bebop movement. Gillespie’s father was a bricklayer and amateur bandleader who introduced his son to the basics of several instruments. After his father died in 1927, Gillespie taught himself the trumpet and trombone; for two years he attended the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina, […]
05 January 1993 - Brian Lara scores his maiden Test century with 277 for the West Indies v Australia in drawn 3rd Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground Lara is considered one of the greatest cricket batsmen of all-time. One of a family of 11, a natural athlete, and a member of the national under-(age)14 football (soccer) team, Lara was expected from an early age to be the […]
04 January 1935 - Floyd Patterson Thomas and Annabelle Patterson’s third child, Floyd Patterson was born on 4 January 1935, in North Carolina. Consisting of 13 members, the family was financially weak and Patterson grew up to be an antisocial child who could not read or write until the age of 11. However, he improved both, inside and outside the classroom when he joined the Wiltwyck School for Boys […]
03 January 1987 - Aretha Franklin is the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Aretha Franklin was an artist of passion, sophistication and command, whose recordings remain anthems that defined soul music. Long live the Queen. Started out as a gospel singer this "Queen of Soul's" six-decade-long career has made Franklin one of the most influential and important voices in […]
02 January 1776 - Congress publishes the Tory Act The Continental Congress publishes the “Tory Act” resolution on January 2, 1776, which describes how colonies should handle those Americans who remain loyal to the British and King George. The act called on colonial committees to indoctrinate those “honest and well-meaning, but uninformed people” by enlightening them as to the “origin, nature and extent of the present controversy.” The Congress remained […]
01 January 1803 -Haitian independence proclaimed Two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name. In 1791, a revolt erupted on the French colony, and Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man, took control of the rebels. Gifted with natural military genius, Toussaint organized an effective guerrilla war against the island’s colonial population. He found able […]
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