The special instruction Quincy Jones sent out to the several dozen
pop stars invited to participate in the recording of “We Are the
World” was this: “Check your egos at the door.” Jones was the
producer of a record that would eventually go on to sell more than
7 million copies and raise more than $60 million for African famine
relief. But before “We Are the World” could achieve those feats, it
had to be captured on tape—no simple feat considering the number
of major recording artists slated to participate.

With only one chance to get the recording the way he and writers
Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wanted it, Jones convened the marathon recording session of “We Are the World” at around 10
p.m. on the evening of January 28, 1985, immediately following
the conclusion of the American Music Awards ceremony held
just a few miles away.

Singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte was the initiator of the events
that led to the recording of “We Are the World.”

A soloist booth song sheet used for the 1985 recording
of ‘We Are the World’, individually signed by the artists
involved.

(FOX NEWS) – The oldest toy store in San Francisco announced
this week that it is shutting down due to the rampant crime and
violence in the city’s streets, and because of inflation.

Jeffrey’s Toys, the downtown San Francisco toy store that
inspired Pixar’s classic "Toy Story," announced on Friday
that it will be closing permanently at the end of February.

1995

SANDY KOZEL

(AP)

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle
Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and
Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first
ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a
37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New
Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place
among the seven-member crew of the Challenger.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground,
including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the
shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.

The crew of the Challenger space shuttle. Front row,
from left to right, shows astronauts Mike Smith, Dick
Scobee, Ron McNair and in the rear row, from left to
right, are Ellison Onizuka, school teacher Christa
McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA) 

A B-17 crew from the United States Army Air Force’s Eighth
Air Force, 385th Bomb Group, plot a target on a map prior
to a mission.

The U.S. Eighth Air Force launched its bombing campaign against
Nazi Germany, one of the largest, most important and most
devastating strategic initiatives in the annals of warfare, on this
day in history, Jan. 27, 1943. 

The crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Knock-out Dropper
bomber.

A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral,
Florida, killed astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II,
and Roger B. Chaffee.

The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had
been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch that 
was scheduled for the following month.

The Apollo 1 prime crewmembers intended for the first
manned Apollo space flight: (L to R) Edward H. White II,
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee.