It’s November 17th, and these are some of the things that happened on this day in pop music history:
- In 1938, Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. was born in Orillia, Ont. He started singing as a young child and went on to become a music icon in Canada. Lightfoot also penned widely-covered hits like “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown.”
- In 1984, Wham! started a three-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.” The song had debuted on the chart 10 weeks earlier.
- In 1980, Clarke Isaac Hanson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With his brothers Taylor and Zac, he formed pop group Hanson, which had hits like “MMMBop.”
- In 2000, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie opened in cinemas, helping give make “Who Let the Dogs Out,” a song by Baha Men that had been released four months earlier, into a smash hit around the world.
- In 2003, Britney Spears became the youngest singer to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Then 21, she got the attraction’s 2,242nd star.
- In 2009, Ontario-born Justin Bieber released his debut EP, My World. The seven-song collection, which included “One Less Lonely Girl,” went to No. 1 in Canada and was a Top 5 hit in the U.S. and UK.
And that’s what popped on this day.