First Gold Record Awarded by the RIAA: A New Music Milestone
The first gold album ever certified went to a musical about farmers and cowboys arguing over fences. March 1958. The RIAA created the award — 500,000 copies sold — and gave it to *Oklahoma!*, a soundtrack that had been sitting on shelves since 1955. Three years of sales, uncounted. The recording industry suddenly needed proof that music moved units, that investments paid off. Broadway cast albums became cash machines. And the template for every platinum plaque hanging in every label office started with "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'."
July 8, 1958
68 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 8
Während des Ersten Kreuzzugs ziehen die hungernden Kreuzfahrer zur Hebung ihrer Moral dreimal barfuß um die belagerte Stadt Jerusalem.
Fifteen thousand starving Crusader soldiers marched barefoot around Jerusalem's walls in a religious procession while Muslim defenders watched from the ramparts…
en Palestina, unos 15 000 soldados cristianos hambrientos comienzan el asedio de Jerusalén marchando en una procesión religiosa alrededor de la ciudad mientras …
The Byzantine army slaughtered 15,000 Hungarian soldiers at Sirmium in a single afternoon. Manuel I Komnenos had lured King Stephen III's forces into the marshl…
Roger of Lauria's galleys trapped the Angevin relief fleet in Malta's Grand Harbor before a single soldier could disembark. June 8, 1283. The Provençal commande…
Der Vertrag von Kalisch beendet die Streitigkeiten zwischen Polens König Kasimir III. und dem Deutschordensstaat über Gebietsansprüche. Pommerellen, das Kulmerl…
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