On this day in 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age movie
American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George Lucas,
opened in theaters across the U.S. Set in California in the
summer of 1962, American Graffiti was nominated for five
Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture,
and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard Dreyfuss
and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor and future
Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard. The film’s success
enabled Lucas to get his next movie made, the mega-hit Star
Wars (1977).

Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith) appears as the D.J. 

Harrison Ford

Richard (Dick) Wagstaff Clark (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012)

Television, rock and roll and teenagers. In the late 1950s, when television and
rock and roll were new and when the biggest generation in American history
was just about to enter its teens, it took a bit of originality to see the potential power in this now-obvious combination. The man who saw that potential more clearly than any other was a 26-year-old native of upstate New York named
Dick Clark, who transformed himself and a local Philadelphia television
program into two of the most culturally significant forces of the early rock-
and-roll era. His iconic show, American Bandstand, began broadcasting
nationally on this day in 1957, beaming images of clean-cut, average
teenagers dancing to the not-so-clean-cut Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta
Shakin’ Goin’ On” to 67 ABC affiliates across the nation.

The show that evolved into American Bandstand began on Philadephia’s
WFIL-TV in 1952, a few years before the popular ascension of rock and
roll. Hosted by local radio personality Bob Horn (below).

Donald Loyd "Bob" Horn
(February 20, 1916 – July 31, 1966)

Sir Michael Philip Jagger is 76 today.

On this day in 1943, musician, actor, film producer and Rolling Stones
front man Mick Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England.

Raised in a middle-class English family, Mick Jagger attended the
London School of Economics but left without graduating in order to
pursue a career in music.

Mick Jagger with The Rolling Stones.

   
 
TIM MAGUIRE
   

Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface. 

First footprint on the Moon (left) was that of astronaut Neil
Armstrong (right).

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag.
(Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)

ROSS SIMPSON

Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA. on this day in 1955. Walt Disney gave the opening day speech. Thousands of people attended the
event.