55 years ago tonight, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden and turned the experience into one of the biggest hits of his later career. The audience remembered him as Ricky Nelson, the teenage star of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet who had enjoyed a string of pop hits before Beatlemania. But by 1971, he'd grown his hair and moved into country rock. He played some of his old hits, including “Hello Mary Lou.” When he performed the Rolling Stones' “Country Honk,” boos broke out. That moment inspired Nelson to write “Garden Party,” which reached No. 6 on the pop charts the following year, his first Top 10 hit in nearly a decade. An audience that wanted the old Ricky Nelson helped inspire one of the biggest hits of the new Rick Nelson. Here he is performing that song in 1985, a few months before his death at age 45 on New Year's Eve in a plane crash while traveling to a concert in Dallas.

Today in 1950, Jack Benny’s first network TV show aired live on CBS. After nearly two decades as a radio star, audiences finally got to see the famously vain character who insisted he was 39 years old. His opening line: “I’d give a million dollars to know what I look like!” Benny approached TV cautiously, appearing just four times during that first season while continuing his popular weekly radio show. By 1955, he had ended his radio show, a reflection of how dramatically the broadcasting landscape had changed in just five years. Asked why he had left radio for TV, Benny explained: “I didn’t have to decide. Television decided that for you. TV and sponsors.”

Today in 1904, New York City’s first subway opened, running 9 miles from City Hall to 145th Street. There were 28 stations, and a ride cost 5 cents. Mayor George McClellan operated the first train himself. He liked it so much that he kept driving until 103rd Street instead of handing over the controls as planned. The subway opened to the public at 7 PM. More than 100,000 people rode it that evening. Even before it opened, officials were warning passengers to expect delays. Some things never change.

Today in 1954, the TV show “Disneyland” premiered on ABC, nine months before the theme park it was promoting opened in Anaheim. In the first episode, “The Disneyland Story,” Walt Disney gave viewers a tour of his studio, revealed plans for the park, and looked back at Mickey Mouse’s career. At a time when Hollywood feared TV would keep audiences at home, Disney used it to bring them somewhere else IRL. The hour-long series became ABC’s first program to reach the top ten in the Nielsen ratings. There was a business side to the partnership, too. Disney needed money to build the park, and ABC needed programming to compete with NBC and CBS. In exchange for helping finance Disneyland, ABC received a 35% ownership stake in the park. Forty one years later, in 1995, Disney announced it was buying ABC itself.

As a kid, the second Andy Rooney appeared on 60 Minutes and started in on a mystery like why cereal boxes are never full, I knew the weekend was almost over. Later in life I learned that before Rooney became a fixture in that closing spot, it belonged to “Point/Counterpoint,” a segment that helped establish political debate as a regular feature of mainstream network TV. Conservative James J. Kilpatrick and liberal Shana Alexander argued opposing sides of the issues of the day. Their exchanges became so familiar that Saturday Night Live parodied them with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin.

42 years ago today, Michael Jordan made his NBA debut with the Chicago Bulls. To help fill Chicago Stadium, the team brought in the Famous Chicken. As a Chicago Tribune ad (below) announced: “Michael Jordan’s 1st NBA Game. And the Chicken will be there to cheer the Olympic hero on.” Even with both attractions, fewer than 14,000 fans showed up to watch Jordan face the Washington Bullets. The Bulls needed a Chicken to help sell tickets to see the GOAT.

Forty years ago tonight, a routine ground ball rolled between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, allowing the Mets to score the winning run. What NBC’s Vin Scully didn’t do afterward was also memorable. The Red Sox were one out from their first championship since 1918, leading 5–3 in the bottom of the 10th at Shea. Three straight singles and a wild pitch tied the game before Mookie Wilson hit a slow grounder toward first. Scully called it: “Little roller up along first … behind the bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!” For more than two minutes, Scully remained silent as the broadcast showed the celebration at Shea, replays of Buckner’s error, and the stunned Red Sox players. When Scully finally spoke again, he said, “If one picture is worth a thousand words, you have seen about a million words.”