The King of Rock and Roll teamed up with TV’s reigning variety
program, as Elvis Presley appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show”
for the first time on September 9, 1956.

After earning big ratings for “The Steve Allen Show,” the
Dorsey Brothers “Stage Show” and “The Milton Berle Show,”
Sullivan finally reneged on his Presley ban, signing the
controversial singing star to an unprecedented $50,000 contract
for three appearances.

With 60 million viewers—or 82.6 percent of TV viewers at the time—tuning in, the appearance garnered the show’s best
ratings in two years and became the most-watched TV
broadcast of the 1950s.

   Ed Sullivan

Bernard Shaw (May 22, 1940 – September 7, 2022)

Shaw was an journalist and news anchor for CNN from 1980 until
his retirement in March 2001. Prior to his time at CNN, he was a
reporter and anchor for WNUS, Westinghouse Broadcasting, CBS
News, and ABC News.

Bernard Shaw died at a hospital in Washington, D.C. after
contracting pneumonia.

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and
14 other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952
until her death.

Her reign of 70 years and 214 days was the longest of any
British monarch in history and the second longest recorded
of any monarch of a sovereign country in history.

In a controversial executive action, President Gerald Ford pardoned
his disgraced predecessor Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he may
have committed or participated in while in office.

Ford later defended this action before the House Judiciary Committee, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal.

President Richard Nixon (left) briefs the then House Minority Leader Gerald Ford at the White House October 13, 1973.

If you took out a map of the United States and traced a line
beginning at New Orleans and running up the Mississippi
River to Memphis, the tip of your finger would pass through
the very birthplace of rock and roll—a region where nearly
every step in its early development took place and where
nearly every significant contributor to that development was
born. But if the foundation of rock and roll was mostly laid
down within 100 miles of the Mississippi River in the mid-
1950s, the blueprint for what would follow required the further contributions of a young man born 700 miles to the west on
this day in 1936: Charles Harden Holley. Writing and performing
under the name Buddy Holly, this Lubbock, Texas, native would
have an influence on rock and roll that would far outlast his
tragically shortened career.