On This Date In Music

1949 - RCA Victor introduced the 45 rpm single record, which had been in development since 1940. The 7-inch disc was designed to compete with the Long Playing record introduced by Columbia a year earlier. Both formats offered better fidelity and longer playing time than the 78 rpm record that was currently in use. Advertisements for new record players boasted that with 45 rpm records, the listener could hear up to ten records with speedy, silent, hardly noticeable changes.

1972 - America's self-titled debut album hits No. 1 in, yes, America.

1976 - Led Zeppelin released Presence, their seventh studio album, on their own Swan Song Records in the UK. Presence has now been certified 3 times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for US sales in excess of 3 million copies.