Today in history: Elvis Presley is born
One of Presley's cousins, Billy Mann, accepted $18,000 to secretly photograph the corpse; the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer's biggest-selling issue ever.
American singer and actor, Elvis Aaron Presley, was born on 8 January 1935, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century and he is often referred to as the “King of Rock and Roll” or simply “the King”.
Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee with his family when he was 13 years old.
His music career kicked off in 1954 when he started recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience.
His final concert was held in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena, on 26 June.
On the evening of Tuesday, 16 August 1977, Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to begin another tour when he was discovered in an unresponsive state on a bathroom floor.
Attempts to revive him failed, and his death was officially pronounced at 3:30 p.m. at the Baptist Memorial Hospital.
Presley’s funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday, 18 August. Outside the gates, a car ploughed into a group of fans, killing two women and critically injuring a third.
Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to view the open casket and one of Presley’s cousins, Billy Mann, accepted $18 000 to secretly photograph the corpse; the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer’s biggest-selling issue ever.
Information sourced from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
