Musician Ritchie Valens died at age 17 in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. It was the same crash that killed fellow rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. The musicians were in the middle of a tour known as the Winter Dance Party, wherein the group was scheduled to play 24 shows in 24 days across the U.S. Midwest. They were headed to Fargo, North Dakota, for a gig in Moorhead, Minnesota. The tragic accident was immortalized in Don McLean’s 1971 song “American Pie,” in which it was called “the day the music died.”
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