A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record (in American English), vinyl record (in reference to vinyl, the material most commonly used after about 1950), or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Phonograph records are generally described by their diameter in inches (12-inch, 10-inch, 7-inch, etc.), the rotational speed at which they are played ("33⅓ r.p.m.", "78", "45", etc.), their time capacity ("Long Playing"), their reproductive accuracy, or "fidelity", or the number of channels of audio provided ("Mono", "Stereo", "Quadraphonic", etc.).

Gramophone records were the primary medium used for music reproduction for most of the 20th century, replacing the phonograph cylinder, with which it had co-existed, by the 1920s. By the late 1980s, digital media had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. However, they continue to be manufactured and sold in the 21st century. The vinyl record regained popularity by 2008, with nearly 2.9 million units shipped that year, the most in any year since 1998 and the format has continued to slowly regain popularity. They are especially used by DJs and audiophiles for many types of music. As of 2012, vinyl records continue to be used for distribution of independent and alternative music artists. More mainstream pop music releases tend to be mostly sold in compact disc or other digital formats, but have still been released in vinyl in certain instances.

Horst Ludwig Wessel (October 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930) was a German Nazi activist and an SA-Sturmführer who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930. He was the author of the lyrics to the song "Die Fahne hoch" ("The Flag On High"), usually known as Horst-Wessel-Lied ("the Horst Wessel Song"), which became the Nazi Party anthem and, de facto, Germany's co-national anthem from 1933 to 1945. His passing also resulted in him becoming the "patron" for the Luftwaffe's 26th Destroyer Wing during World War II.

Wessel was born in Bielefeld in Westphalia, the son of Dr. Ludwig Wessel, a Lutheran minister at the Nikolaikirche, one of Berlin's oldest churches. Wessel's mother, Luise Margarete Wessel, also came from a family of Lutheran pastors, and Horst Wessel himself would remain a devout Lutheran throughout his life. The family lived in the nearby Judenstraße (the Jews' Street), which in mediaeval times had been the centre of Berlin's Jewish community. Wessel's father was a supporter of the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), and when he was 15, Wessel joined the DNVP youth group, the Bismarckjugend. He soon became a local leader, engaging in street battles with youth members of the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party.

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.^{[citation needed]}