December 2nd

 Musical birthdays today include Manfred Mann guitarist Tom McGuinness (80), jazz guitarist Tonino Horta (73), session keyboardist & producer Rob Mounsley (69), Def Leppard bassist Rick Savage (61), Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel (53), Nelly Furtado (43), and Britney Spears (40). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Maria Callas, born on this day in 1923... for Miles Davis sideman Wynton Kelly [pianist on Kind of Blue], who would have been 90... for Hanoi Rocks drummer Nick 'Razzle' Dingley, who would have been 61... for Aaron Copland, who died on this date in 1990... for former Shocking Blue lead singer Mariska Veres, who passed away in 2006... and for Odetta, who left us today in 2008.

Also on December 2: Saint-Saëns' opera Samson et Dalila premieres in Weimar (1877)... The Monkees album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd goes to № 1 on the US album chart. It is their fourth LP to sell over a million copies, following The Monkees, More Of The Monkees and Headquarters (1967)... George Harrison's Wonderwall Music appears in shops. It is the first official solo album by one of the Beatles, as well as Apple Records' first LP release... Cindy Birdsong of the Supremes is kidnapped at knifepoint by a maintenance man employed by the building she lives in. She later escapes unharmed by jumping out of his car on the San Diego freeway. The kidnapper will be arrested in Las Vegas four days later (1968)... Queen release A Night at the Opera in the US (1975)... The first day of the photo shoot for the cover of Pink Floyd's forthcoming album Animals takes place at Battersea Power Station in London with a giant inflatable pig lashed between two of the structure's tall towers. A trained marksman is standing by ready to fire if the floating swine escapes, but will not be needed on this, the first day. The following day, unfortunately, the marksman had not been rebooked, so when the inflatable breaks free from its moorings, it is able to float away, eventually landing in Kent where it is recovered by a local farmer, reportedly furious that it "scared the devil out of my cows" (1976)...  Rod Stewart is at № 1 on both sides of the Atlantic with 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy'. A plagiarism lawsuit brought by Brazilian musician Jorge Ben alleging that the song had been derived from his composition 'Taj Mahal' will be upheld, and Stewart agrees to donate all his royalties from the song to United Nations Children's Fund (1978)...  Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand's ‘You Don't Bring Me Flowers’ hits № 1 on the US singles chart. A Chicago radio station engineer had spliced Neil's version together with Barbra's and got such a good response that the station added it to their playlist. When Diamond was told about it, he approached Streisand to re-record the song as a duet, and she agreed. Within weeks of its release, the single went to the top in America and № 5 in Britain (1979)... MTV airs the full 14-minute version of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video for the first time. Now regarded as the one of the most influential pop music videos of all time, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress  in 2009, the first music video to ever receive this honour, for being 'culturally, historically or aesthetically significant' (1983)... Jerry Lee Lewis checks into the Betty Ford Clinic to be treated for an addiction to painkillers (1986)... The new edition of the Guinness Book of World Records confirms that the Swedish band Ace of Base have set a new mark for the biggest selling debut album in history, with 19 million copies sold worldwide to date (1995)... The Smashing Pumpkins play their final concert when they appear at the Metro Club in Chicago (2000)... 25 year old singer/actress Beyoncé Knowles signs a contract for more money than any other black actress in history to perform in her latest film 'Dreamgirls'. The musical based on the history of Diana Ross and the Supremes will earn the singer an $8.2 million fee (2006)... Led Zeppelin are given an award by President Obama for their significant contribution to American culture and the arts. Dressed in black suits and bow ties, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page are among a group of artists who receive Kennedy Center Honours at a dinner event at the White House. In his tribute to the band, Mr Obama says: "When Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham burst onto the musical scene in the late 1960s, the world never saw it coming". The President draws laughter from guests when he thanks the former band members for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of "hotel rooms being trashed and mayhem all around" (2012).