This Day in Black History: June 27, 1987

Whitney Houston became the first female singer to have an album debut at No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

Posted: 06/27/2013 08:00 AM EDT

With the release of her album Whitney in 1987, Whitney Houston, the internationally renowned singer, made music history. She became the first female artist in music history to debut at Number 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and the first artist to enter the Billboard albums chart at number one in both the United States and England, while also hitting number one or the Top 10 in dozens of other countries around the world.

The album’s first single, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” was a huge worldwide hit, going to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In fact, Houston became the first female artist to generate four number-one singles from one album. Whitney sold a total of 20 million copies worldwide.

Whitney Elizabeth Houston, who was born in 1963 in Newark, NJ, was an iconic artist of her time. She was a singer, actress, producer, model and songwriter. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female artist of all time. She died on Feb, 11, 2012, in a Beverly Hills, CA, hotel at 48.



(Photo: REUTERS/Mark Peterson /Landov)

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