This Friday, June 25th, will be one year since the King of Pop music, Michael Jackson was found unconscious in his California home before being taken to a local hospital where he would later be pronounced dead.
His death created a media frenzy as search engines were flooded with queries for 'Michael Jackson', and news channels like CNN, Fox and the BBC devoted enormous amounts of time to covering the events surrounding his passing.
Sales for Michael Jackson's albums multiplied overnight as retailers ran out of stock and quickly ordered more. The Top Pop Catalogue Albums chart's top 10 spots were made up entirely of Michael Jackson albums in the weeks following his death as a reported nine million copies of his albums were posthumously sold.
Propelling Michael Jackson's album sales to unprecedented levels, his death saw his most popular album, Thriller, widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, finally becoming the best selling album in the United States, an honour previously held by the Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975). While the 'This Is It' concerts schedule for July would never take place, a film of the same name documenting the concerts' rehearsals was released in October of 2009 and shattered numerous concert film records.
The memorial service held at the Staples Center, which featured performances from musical talents as diverse as Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, and John Mayer, attracted more than 30 million viewers in the United States alone.
Indeed, it seemed that no part of popular culture would be left untouched by Michael Jackson following the tragedy of June 25. One British soap opera, EastEnders, went so far as to add a scene in which one character tells another of MJ's passing in the June 26 episode.
While the little Kanye West incident at the MTV Video Music Awards lead to a running joke on the Internet that Michael Jackson had the greatest death of all time.
One year later many still mourn the death of the man that some call the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And while for many the fanfare surrounding his death has faded, years from now everyone will still remember where they were when they heard that the King of Pop had passed away.