Paramedics rushed Michael Jackson to UCLA Medical Center after he stopped breathing at his rented Holmby Hills mansion, where he was rehearsing for a highly anticipated comeback tour, 'This Is It.' His death, later ruled a homicide caused by propofol administered by Dr. Conrad Murray, triggered a global outpouring of grief and cemented his legacy as one of the best-selling and most influential musical artists in history.
Jackson had been rehearsing intensively at the Staples Center for a 50-concert London residency meant to resurrect a career battered by scandal and financial trouble. He was, by all accounts, thin and exhausted, relying on his personal physician Conrad Murray to help him sleep using propofol, a powerful surgical anesthetic never intended for home use as a sleep aid.
On the morning of June 25, Murray found Jackson not breathing and, according to trial testimony, delayed calling 911 while attempting resuscitation himself. Paramedics arrived to find him in cardiac arrest; he was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center that afternoon. Murray was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served two years in prison.
The news broke so fast and so widely that it briefly overwhelmed the internet — Twitter and Wikipedia both strained under the traffic, and some reports called it the site's biggest crash since its founding. Radio stations worldwide switched to all-Jackson programming, and his memorial service at the Staples Center drew a global broadcast audience estimated in the hundreds of millions, a scale of mourning rarely matched for an entertainer.
Key people: Michael Jackson, Conrad Murray