February 19

Motown's greatest poet Smokey Robinson celebrates his 86th birthday today, the Miracles founder whose silky tenor and sophisticated songwriting on "Tracks of My Tears" and "Shop Around" made him Berry Gordy's most important artist and influence on everyone from Bob Dylan to the Beatles…

 

Rock's most infamous sex tape began today in 1995 when Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee married Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson on a Cancun beach, the whirlwind four-day-courtship marriage producing two sons and a stolen honeymoon video before their volatile 1998 divorce…

 

Bruce Springsteen paradoxically topped the charts on this day in 1977 when Manfred Mann's Earth Band's cover of "Blinded by the Light" hit number one, remaining the Boss's only chart-topping song despite his inability to take his own version there in 1973…

 

Television confronted racism's complexity today in 1972 when Sammy Davis Jr. made his notorious guest appearance on CBS's 'All in the Family,' the episode where Archie Bunker received a kiss from the Black entertainer becoming one of the most discussed moments in sitcom history…

 

Heavy metal's godfather Tony Iommi celebrates his 78th birthday today, the Black Sabbath guitarist whose down-tuned riffs and missing fingertips created doom metal's blueprint while proving that disability couldn't stop musical innovation from changing rock forever…

 

British soul's most distinctive voice was born on this day in 1963 when Henry Samuel, known simply as Seal, entered the world, the singer whose "Kiss from a Rose" and facial scars made him one of the 1990s' most recognizable and successful crossover artists.