1726 -  Mme d'Épinay is born in Valenciennes. Friend of Diderot and Rousseau, guest of Voltaire, she will become famous for her Conversations of Emily and three volumes of Memoirs and Correspondence.


1920 -  Poet, novelist, and editor of The Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse, D.J. Enright is born in Leamington, Warwickshire, England.


1927 - Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the famous Roxy Theatre in New York City. It is a showplace among the palace tradition of movie theaters, with a screen of 18-feet by 22-feet. It cost $10,000,000 to build and held 6,200 theatergoers. The first feature shown at the Roxy was The Loves of Sunya, starring Gloria Swanson and John Boles. The Roxy truly was part of the “golden age of the movie palace.”






1935 - Thomas "Fats" Waller records a remarkable 29 songs in New York City most of which will be released on the “His Master's Voice” label.








1940 - Manfred Mann drummer Mike Hugg is born in Andover, England.









1945 - Harvey Mandel, guitarist played for Canned Heat, John Mayall, the Rolling Stones, and Barry Goldberg, is born in Detroit.









1947 - Mark Stein, the somnolent vocalist and organist of Vanilla Fudge, is born in New Jersey's Rock City, Bayonne.






1953 - An American B-47 reportedly accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on South Carolina.  The bomb doesn't detonate due to six safety catches.


1965 - Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, dies after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.


1967 - Tonight begins the third and final scheduled group of Doors appearances at Ondine in New York.


1967 - Pink Floyd releases their first single, Arnold Layne, backed with Candy and a Currant Bun.




1967 - Jean-Luc Godard's One Plus One, starring the Rolling Stones, opens in the U.S. The obtuse film features Godard's trademark Marxist lecturing interspersed with scenes of the Stones composing Sympathy for the Devil. The producers later recut the footage to include more Mick and redub the movie Sympathy for the Devil. Critics remain baffled, however.






1968 - Otis Redding posthumously receives a gold record for the single, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay. Redding was killed in a plane crash in Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin on December 10, 1967. The song was recorded just three days before his death. He recorded 11 charted hit songs between 1965 and 1969. Otis Redding was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.





1969 - The 1969 Grammy Award winners are announced. The Fifth Dimension's Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In Medley from Hair is Record of the Year. Blood, Sweat and Tears, by the band of the same name is Album of the Year and Joe South's Games People Play is Song of the Year. Crosby, Stills and Nash wins the Best New Artist award. The group releases its Deja Vu album the same day. CSN&Y will record their second album as a quartet in 1988.


1970 - Tonight is the midwest premiere of Jim Morrison''s film production Feast of Friends at the Aardvark Cinematheque, Chicago, Illinois.







1974 - An insurance company pays out $112,000 on Janis Joplin's life insurance policy following her accidental overdose in 1970.






1975 - How big were the Moody Blues? Well, the Blue Jays - that is, Moodsters Justin Hayward and John Lodge's side project - stage a playback of their self-titled debut album today at Carnegie Hall. The Blue Jays wanted to pipe the music into the street, but New York police said they feared a traffic jam.


1975 - Mick Jagger stops by Los Angeles' Record Plant studios and ends up getting involved in a jam session with Wings and Ron Wood.


1992 - Eric Clapton records an episode of MTV Unplugged. The subsequent record becomes one of the best-selling of his career.


1997 - Paul McCartney becomes Sir Paul McCartney upon being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.



Doors History Spotlight: Ondine


Tonight begins the third and final scheduled group of Doors appearances at Ondine in New York.

Opening night is met with raves from the trades, the Cashbox headline reading “The Doors have opened ... WIDE”. This rave review was followed on March 23rd by an equally enthusiastic review by Richard Goldstein of The Village Voice who recommended “making it up to Ondine to find out what the literature of pop is all about”. Further reports in Cashbox throughout the engagement keep the industry apprised that “The Doors are still packing them in at Ondine.” They continued to pack them in until April 2nd.

For more day-by-day history go to HistoryUnlimited.net