Above: Nadia Comaneci in 1976 and 2012.

NICKNAMED “LITTLE Miss Perfect,” fourteen-year-old Nadia Comaneci was truly tiny (4 foot 11, 86 pounds) and frequently flawless at the Montreal Games. On this date in 1976, the Romanian received the first perfect 10s in an Olympic gymnastic event, although onlookers were initially mystified when seven scoreboards flashed “1.00” scores. Turned out the “1.00” really meant “10.00” — the scoreboards only registered three digits because no one had ever received a perfect-10 before.

Comaneci would gather six more 10s in Montreal and win three gold medals, a silver, and a bronze. “On a scale of 1 to 10, she really deserves an 11 for what she has accomplished in relation to the scores of other gymnasts,” wrote Dave Anderson of The New York Times, who described her as “a Barbie doll with bangs.” With her spectacular performance, Comaneci demonstrated — in her own words — “a new power and body type that would change the face of gymnastics forever.”

Comaneci won two more gold medals and a silver at the 1980 Moscow Olympics before retiring from gymnastics at age twenty-two in 1984. She defected to the United States in 1991 and in 1996 married Bart Connor, who had won a gold-medal as a U.S. gymnast in 1984. The wedding, held in the Parliamentary Palace in Bucharest, was aired live on Romanian television.

ON THIS DATE in 1960, fifteen-year-old Brenda Lee reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I’m Sorry,” a song that would remain atop the charts for three weeks.

Just 4-foot-9 inches tall, Lee belted out rock, country, and holiday hits in a voice that sounded 10-feet tall. At eleven, the Atlanta native signed with Decca records, and four years had a series of hot-selling singles. “I’m Sorry” was the number six single of 1960, “I Want To Be Wanted” was number 21, and “Sweet Nothin’s” came in at number 34.

Lee also had a 1960 hit with “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” a holiday standard that she originally recorded in 1958.

No flavor-of-the-month teen star, “Little Miss Dynamite” placed 50 singles on the pop charts between 1960 and 1973. In 2002, she became the first female inducted into both the rock and roll and country music halls of fame.