1967: NBC airs Petula Clark’s first and only TV special, Petula. During her duet with Harry Belafonte, she spontaneously reaches out and touches him on his arm. Sponsor Chrysler Motors wants the moment cut from the show, fearing a backlash from Southern viewers. Clark refuses, and the show airs with the touch intact, becoming the first interracial contact to air on American television.

The nation, somehow, endures the shock. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

1955: Ray Charles scores his first hit, landing on Billboard’s R&B charts with his song “I Got a Woman.”

The song is a revamped gospel tune, originally titled “It Might Be Jesus.”

1968: Pink Floyd announces that the group’s founding member Syd Barrett is leaving the band due to psychiatric problems that have been made worse by Syd’s use of hallucinogenics.

1967: An organized protest of teenage girls takes place in London.

The reason? Davy Jones of the Monkees is scheduled to be inducted into the army.

The girls had nothing to fear. Jones eventually earns an exemption because he was the sole support of his family.

1970: Janis Joplin appears with her old band, Big Brother & the Holding Company, at a special reunion concert in San Francisco. It will be the last time she appears with the band.

1964: “The Times They are a-Changin’” indeed. It was on this day that Bob Dylan made his first appearance on the pop charts when his song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” entered the UK charts. Just one day later, Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” would enter the U.S. Top 40.

1967: Having recently left the Spender Davis Group, keyboard player/singer/composer Stevie Winwood joins Dave Mason, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to form a new band they call Traffic.

2008: To celebrate April Fool’s Day, soon-to-be-disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich declares the day “Cheap Trick Day,” honoring the band that originally hailed from that state.

No word on how much the band had to pay the governor for that honor.

1957: If you had to pick just one song to encapsulate everything that is rock & roll, that song would probably be “Johnny B. Goode.” Chuck Berry released that classic on this day. Surprisingly, it did not reach #1 on either the pop or the R&B charts.

1957: Buddy Knox hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Party Doll.”

What makes that special? Knox was the first rock singer to hit #1 with a song he wrote himself. He would not be the last.