Paul Simon Born: Songwriter Who Bridged Musical Worlds
Paul Simon wrote 'The Sound of Silence' at 21, sitting in the dark in his bathroom with the water running because he liked the way the room held sound. He and Art Garfunkel had recorded it for an album that sold 3,000 copies and got them dropped from their label. Two years later a producer overdubbed electric instruments onto the original acoustic recording and released it without telling them. It reached number one. Simon spent the rest of his career making music that was smarter and stranger than anyone expected, including Graceland.
October 13, 1941
85 years ago
What Else Happened on October 13
Nero ascends the throne after Claudius dies from poison, sidelining the emperor's biological son Britannicus. This succession shift unleashes a decade of brutal…
Claudius died at dinner after eating mushrooms. He was 63. His wife Agrippina probably poisoned him — she'd married him five years earlier to position her son N…
Vandals and Alans breached the Pyrenees on this day, ending Roman administrative control over the Iberian Peninsula. This migration fractured the Western Empire…
Westminster Abbey's current building was consecrated on October 13, 1269, after 23 years of construction. Henry III had demolished the old Norman church to buil…
King Philip the Fair ordered the arrest of hundreds of Knights Templar across France at dawn, crushing a powerful military order that had long held vast wealth …
King Philip IV of France ordered sealed arrest warrants opened simultaneously across the country at dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307. Hundreds of Knights Templa…
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