1981 - A video of the Jacksons' "The Triumph (Can You Feel It)" was aired on "American Bandstand."

1971 - Filmed on 9/10th July, the Jackson 5’s first TV special Goin Back To Indiana, was aired in the States on – appropriately – ABC-TV.

The hour long show, with guests comedians Bill Cosby (as roving reporter Scoop Newsworthy) and Tommy Smothers, singers Bobby Darin & Diana Ross, American footballer Roosevelt ‘Rosey’ Grier, Ben Davidson, and pro-basketball stars Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor & Elvin Hayesand, was an enjoyable mix of music and comedy sketches.

It also featured tracks recorded by J5 during their May 29 "homecoming" concert in Gary, Indiana (hence the show title).

Diana Ross made a brief cameo appearance, and footage from the Jackson 5’s triumphant homecoming to Gary, Indiana in January 1971, was screened.

No longer limited to guest appearances on other people's shows (a regular practice during this point in their career), the brothers were now a big enough name to draw their own audience, who tuned in as enthusiastically to the special as they did to the new Jackson 5ive Saturday morning cartoon that also made its debut in September.

1984 - OK! magazine [France] featured Michael & La Toya on their cover.



1986 - America's National Enquirer ran a cover story 'Michael Jackson’s Bizarre Plan to Live to 150'. Pictured, Michael apparently sleeping in an oxygen chamber, fanning the already rampant rumors of his eccentric and puzzling lifestyle.

The photograph showed the singer, then aged 28, in a striped shirt, dark trousers and white socks, lying on his back with his eyes closed in a hyperbaric chamber of the type used to treat victims of serious burns, embolisms and carbon monoxide poisoning. Something, so the story claimed, Michael did every night as he believed it would prolong his life expectancy!

Such a machine typically consists of a steel and glass or Perspex cylinder inside which the patient is sealed while pure oxygen, under considerable pressure, floods damaged flesh, thus preserving circulation and maintaining tissues essential to the healing process.

Here you can read a comment on that topic by Michael himself (Taken from the Interview "MJ Talks To Oprah", 1993):

Oprah: OK, but you are in something there, there's a picture of you, where did that come from? How did it get started?

MJ: That's... I did a commercial for Pepsi and I was burned very badly and we settled for 1 million dollars and I gave all the money...like, we built this place called the Michael Jackson Burn Centre and that's a piece of technology used for burn victims, right. So I'm looking at the piece of technology and decide to go inside it and just to hammer around, somebody takes the picture, when they process the pictures the person who processes the picture says. "Oh, Michael Jackson". He made a copy and these pictures went all over the world with this lie attached to it. It's a complete lie... It's crazy. Why would I want to sleep in a chamber?

Oprah: The rumour was that you were sleeping in the chamber because you didn't want to grow old.

MJ: That's stupid. It's completely made up. I'm embarassed. I'm willing to forgive the press, or forgive anybody, I was taught to love and forgive, which I do have in my heart, but please don't believe these crazy, horryfying things.

In Michael's "Leave Me Alone" video he lashes back the publisher as "National Intruder". And one of the many bizzar newspaper headlines reads "Michael Sleeps In Hyperbaric Chamber", with an identical photo shown to the one that was attached to the stories, which showed Michael lying in a glass box.

1987 - CIAO 2001 magazine [Italy] featured Michael on the cover.


1992 - Michael performs Dangerous tour at Stade Municipal, Toulouse [France] attending 40,000.

1996 - Russian Mayor Meeting: Michael meets Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov - Monday.


Michael was a presented a Russian folk handcraft plate depicting Moscow's coat of arms; Gzhel depicting a horseman with a spear in his hand slaying a basilisk and is identified with Saint George and the Dragon.

Michael's arrival in Russia is such a success that MJJ Productions issue the following press release:

'Calling it a 'great gift to Moscovites for him to be here' Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov officially welcomed Michael Jackson to the city with a ceremonial reception at the city government's White Hall.

Flanked by other government officials, Luzhkov called Jackson 'a great talent and an outstanding artist' before presenting him with a replica of an official Russian plate from which he said. 'the people's predecessors took their food'. 'Michael Jackson gives himself to all people' said Luzhkov, 'you can sense the warmth. We love classic music and modern music and Michael Jackson is the best as far as modern music is concerned.'