ON THIS DAY 6 20 2023

This Day in History: June 20

Featured Event

1903




American automobile-racing driver Barney Oldfield accomplished the first mile-a-minute performance in a car, at Indianapolis, Indiana.

Featured Biography

Cyndi Lauper
American singer and songwriter




Cyndi Lauper, byname of Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper, (born June 22, 1953, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.), American singer, songwriter, and actress whose flamboyant style and catchy songs, most notably “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (1983), helped make her a pop icon.
Lauper grew up in Queens, New York. An indifferent student, she eventually dropped out of high school, and for the next several years, she worked at a number of assorted jobs and sang popular songs in nightclubs. After she suffered an injury to her vocal chords in 1977, she began to study under a vocal coach. That same year she and fellow musician John Turi formed the rockabilly band Blue Angel, and for the first time, Lauper publicly performed songs that she had had a hand in writing. Critics praised Lauper’s piercing and multihued vocals, and the band won a recording contract and released an eponymous album in 1980 on the Polydor label. Commercial success eluded them, however, and in 1982 Blue Angel was dissolved.


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