Join Gunner as he goes over all the important Rock dates in history weekdays at 3:50. Relive all the chart-topping moments, milestones, bad breakups and first times again.

There will be no hall pass today. Here’s what happened today in Rock N’ Roll.

1890 Ellis Island in New York City opens as a U.S. immigration depot.
1935 A patent is issued for the game of Monopoly by the Parker Brothers.
1938 Dr. R.N. Harger’s “drunkometer,” the first breath test for car drivers, is officially introduced in Indianapolis.
1948 Legendary disco singer Donna Summer is born. She dies in May 2012.
1961 The Beach Boys give their debut performance at a Ritchie Valens memorial concert in Long Beach, California. The group is paid $300 for the gig.
1969 Jimi Hendrix & the Band Of Gypsies make their debut at a New Year’s Eve concert at the Fillmore East in New York. The show is recorded and released as the live album Band Of Gypsies.
1973 Kiss makes its music industry debut, opening for Blue Oyster Cult and Iggy Pop & Teenage Lust at the Academy Of Music in New York City. For the first time on stage, singer-bassist Gene Simmons breathes fire at the end of the song “Firehouse” — and sets his hair on fire.
1980 Edward Van Halen proposes to Valerie Bertinelli, who accepts and marries the guitarist. They eventually part and their divorce is finalized in late 2007.
1983 The Van Halen album 1984 is released.
1984 David Lee Roth releases his Crazy From The Heat EP.
1984 Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his left arm in a car accident.
1990 The Sci-Fi Channel debuts on cable TV.
1997 Actor Will Smith marries actress Jada Pinkett in a New Year’s Eve ceremony in Baltimore.
1999 Russian President Boris Yeltsin is succeeded by Vladimir Putin.
2002 Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne renewed their wedding vows at a party in Beverly Hills.
2004 Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil utters the F-word as part of his New Year’s salutation to the audience on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, setting off a firestorm of reaction that includes threats of fines and other FCC sanctions.
2005 Slipknot and Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor continues his annual tradition of playing a New Year’s Eve with his not very serious cover band, D*m F*x, in Taylor’s hometown of Des Moines, Iowa.
2005 P.O.D. performs in New York City’s Times Square as part of the New Year’s Eve edition of ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live.
2005 Former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul and bassist Rex Brown play together onstage for the first time in four years at a club in Arlington, Texas.
2015 Natalie Cole dies of congestive heart failure at age 65.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

• Tom Hamilton (bassist, Aerosmith) (67)
• Bob Bryar (ex-drummer, My Chemical Romance) (39)
• Scott Ian (guitarist, Anthrax) (55)
• George Thorogood (singer and guitarist, George Thorogood and the Destroyers) (67)
• Andy Summers (guitarist, the Police) (76)
• Val Kilmer (actor, Top Gun, The Doors, Batman Forever) (59)
• Bebe Neuwirth (actress, Cheers and Frasier‘s Lilith) (60)
• Tim Matheson (actor, Animal House, The West Wing) (71)
• Ben Kingsley (actor, Gandhi, Bugsy, Schindler’s List, Hugo, Iron Man 3, Exodus: Gods And Kings) (75)
• Anthony Hopkins (actor, The Silence Of The Lambs, The Remains of the Day, Hannibal, Fracture, The Wolfman, Hitchcock, Transformers: The Last Knight) (81)
• Diane Von Furstenberg (fashion designer) (73)
• Paula Barbieri (former centerfold, O.J. Simpson’s ex-girlfriend) (52)
• Paul Westerberg (frontman, the Replacements) (59)
• PSY (Korean singer, “Gangnam Style”) (41)

And that’s what happened today in Rock ‘N’ Roll…

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