"Rock Around the Clock" was a Last-Minute Addition to
the recording session. 

On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded
“(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock” at a Decca
recording session in New York City.

If rock and roll was a social and cultural revolution,
then “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock” was
its Declaration of Independence. And if Bill Haley
was not exactly the revolution’s Thomas Jefferson,
it may be fair to call him its John Hancock.

The song was chosen to play over the opening
credits of the film Blackboard Jungle, which is
how it became a pop sensation, selling a million
copies in a single month in the spring of 1955.

William (Bill) John Clifton Haley
(July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981)

Craig Breedlove (March 23, 1937 – April 4, 2023)

On November 15, 1965 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, 28-
year-old Californian Craig Breedlove set a new land-speed record,
600.601 miles an hour, in his car, the Spirit of America, which
cost $250,000 and was powered by a surplus engine from a
Navy jet.
     

During his first trip, Breedlove traveled at a rate of 593.178 mph;
during his second, the first time any person had officially gone
faster than 600 mph, he traveled at a rate of 608.201 mph. “That
600 is about a thousand times better than 599,” he said afterward.
“Boy, it’s a great feeling.”

Spirit of America on exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

The Payola scandal reaches a new level of public prominence
and legal gravity on this day 1960, when President Eisenhower
called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a
new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act.

What exactly was Payola? During the hearings conducted by Congressman Oren Harris (D-Arkansas) and his powerful
Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight—fresh off its inquiry
into quiz-show rigging—the term was sometimes used as a
blanket reference to a range of corrupt practices in the radio
and recording industries.

   
Albert James "Alan" Freed 
(December 15, 1921 – January 20, 1965)        

      
      
     
In 1960, payola was made illegal. In December 1962, after
being charged on multiple counts of commercial bribery, 
Freed pled guilty to two counts of commercial bribery,
fined three hundred dollars and was given a suspended 
sentence.

On October 6, 1926, Yankee slugger Babe Ruth hit a record
three homers against the St. Louis Cardinals in the fourth
game of the World Series. The Yanks won the game 10-5,
but despite Ruth’s unprecedented performance, they lost
the championship in the seventh game. In 1928, in the fourth
game of another Yanks-Cards World Series, Ruth tied his
own record, knocking three more pitches out of the same
park.

Teens listening to singles at the record store, 1957 with help
from the store clerk, shown on the left.