Legendary musician and megawatt star Prince dies at 57
On the morning of April 21, 2016, Prince, the polymathic musician who created more than 30 albums and won seven Grammy Awards over a 40-year career, is found dead in Paisley Park, his Minnesota home and recording studio. The cause of death was an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl. He was 57 years old.
In the hours and days after the news broke, fans around the world mourned his death with massive memorials. In a statement, President Obama said, “Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent.”
Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, to musicians Mattie Shaw and John Nelson. As a teenager, Prince played in bands with his friends. In 1978, when he was 20, he signed his first record contract with Warner Bros., and that same year released his debut album, For You. Nearly every year after that he released a new album.
Prince’s sixth studio album, Purple Rain, released in 1984, was a high point. The album spent 24 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, spawned two hit singles (“When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy”), won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance, and sold 13 million copies. The accompanying film of the same name, which starred Prince in a loosely autobiographical role, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Both the album and the film’s success launched Prince to international stardom.
Throughout his career, Prince defied and transcended genre. His music fused elements of funk, R&B, rock and pop into what later became known as Minneapolis Sound. Famously, he usually played all of the instruments on his albums himself—including 27 (ranging from piano to electric guitar to finger cymbals) on For You. He also toured frequently and was known as an especially electrifying live performer.
In the years before his death, Prince had been taking prescription pain medication for chronic hip pain. It is believed he was struggling with opioid addiction. He still recorded and performed during this time. His last album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was released in December 2015.
In October 2016, six months after Prince’s death, Paisley Park opened to the public for tours. In 2016, Prince’s estate sold more albums than any other artist that year, dead or alive.
GAY RIGHTS
1966
“Sip-In” takes place at Julius' Bar in New York City
On the afternoon of April 21, 1966, a bar crawl in New York’s West Village leads to an important early moment in the gay liberation movement. In what will be dubbed the “Sip-In,” Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell and John Timmons publicly identify themselves as gay and demand to be to be served anyway, challenging the unofficial but widespread practice of banning gay customers from bars.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1973
“Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” tops the U.S. pop charts and creates a cultural phenomenon
The yellow ribbon has long been a symbol of support for absent or missing loved ones. There are some who believe that the tradition of the yellow ribbon dates back as far as the Civil War era, when a yellow ribbon in a woman’s hair indicated that she was “taken” by a man who was absent due to service in the United States Army Cavalry. But research by professional folklorists has found no evidence to support that story.
MEXICO
1836
Texas militia routs Mexicans in the Battle of San Jacinto
During the Texan War for Independence, the Texas militia under Sam Houston launches a surprise attack against the forces of Mexican General Santa Anna along the San Jacinto River. The Mexicans were thoroughly defeated, and hundreds were taken prisoner, including General Santa Anna himself.
CHINA
1989
Chinese students protest at Tiananmen Square
Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students gather at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China’s authoritative communist government.
ANCIENT ROME
753 B.C.
Rome founded
According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth century B.C., and the exact date of Rome’s founding was set by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C.
WORLD WAR I
1918
German flying ace, “Red Baron,” killed in action
In the well-trafficked skies above the Somme River in France, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as the Red Baron,” is killed by Allied fire on April 21, 1918. Richthofen, the son of a Prussian nobleman, switched from the German army to the Imperial Air Service in 1915.
SPORTS
1980
Rosie Ruiz fakes Boston Marathon win
Rosie Ruiz, age 26, finishes first in the women’s division of the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:31:56 on April 21, 1980. She was rewarded with a medal, a laurel wreath and a silver bowl; however, eight days later Ruiz is stripped of her victory after race officials learned she jumped into the race about a mile before the finish line.
U.S. PRESIDENTS
1865
Abraham Lincoln's funeral train leaves D.C.
On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. The train carrying Lincoln’s body traveled through 180 cities and seven states on its way to Lincoln’s home state of Illinois.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1816
Charlotte Brontë born
Charlotte Brontë, the only one of three novelist Brontë sisters to live past age 31, is born. Brontë, one of six siblings who grew up in a gloomy parsonage in the remote English village of Haworth, surrounded by the marshy moors of Yorkshire.
ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1895
First movie projector demonstrated in United States
On April 21, 1895, Woodville Latham and his sons, Otway and Gray, demonstrate their “Panopticon,” the first movie projector developed in the United States. Although motion pictures had been shown in the United States for several years using Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, the films could only be viewed one at a time in a peep-show box, not projected to a large audience.
NATURAL DISASTERS & ENVIRONMENT
1930
Prisoners left to burn in Ohio fire
A fire at an Ohio prison kills 320 inmates, some of whom burn to death when they are not unlocked from their cells. It is one of the worst prison disasters in American history. The Ohio State Penitentiary was built in Columbus in 1834.
CIVIL WAR
1863
Union Colonel Abel Streight’s raid into Alabama and Georgia begins
Union Colonel Abel Streight begins a raid into northern Alabama and Georgia with the goal of cutting the Western and Atlantic Railroad between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Atlanta. The raid ended when Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Streight’s entire command near Rome, Georgia.
INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1967
GM celebrates 100 millionth U.S.-made car
On April 21, 1967, General Motors (GM) celebrates the manufacture of its 100 millionth American-made car. At the time, GM was the world’s largest automaker. General Motors was established in 1908 in Flint, Michigan, by horse-drawn carriage mogul William Durant. In 1904.
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1777
British rampage Danbury, Connecticut
On April 21, 1777, British troops under the command of General William Tryon attack the town of Danbury, Connecticut, and begin destroying everything in sight. Facing little, if any, opposition from Patriot forces, the British went on a rampage, setting fire to homes, storehouses and more than 1,500 tents.
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