On this day in ...... 2003, the woman whom fans had crowned the Queen of Salsa died at her New Jersey home, from complications after brain surgery. At her birth in Havana, Cuba, 77 years earlier, she'd been given the name Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso. As Celia Cruz (left) she became an internationally known performer, earning a Grammy Award, gold albums, and an honorary doctorate. In 1960, the same year of her performance below (credit), Cruz was touring Mexico when revolution came to Cuba. She did not return home, eventually moving to the United States.
(Prior July 16 posts are here, here, and here.)
