“Three Days of Peace and Music,”

On August 17, 1969, one of the all-time grooviest events in music history–the Woodstock Music & Art Fair–draws to a close after three days of peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll in upstate New York.

Conceived as “Three Days of Peace and Music,” Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the arty New York town of Woodstock. When they couldn’t find an appropriate venue in the town itself, the promoters decided to hold the festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York—some 50 miles from Woodstock—owned by Max Yasgur.

Woodstock Music Festival concludes

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1676 – “King Phillip’s War” came to an end with the killing of Indian chief King Phillip. The war between the Indians and the Europeans lasted for two years.

1851 – Isaac Singer was issued a patent on the double-headed sewing machine.

1865 – Disinfectant was used for the first time during surgery by Joseph Lister.

1867 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him when he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

1877 – Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and made the first sound recording.

1879 – The first National Archery Association tournament took place in Chicago, IL.

1898 – The Spanish-American War was ended with the signing of the peace protocol. The U.S. acquired Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Hawaii was also annexed.

1915 – “Of Human Bondage” by William Somerset Maugham was first published.

1918 – Regular airmail service began between Washington, DC, and New York City.

1939 – “The Wizard of Oz” premiered in Oconomowoc, WI. Judy Garland became famous for the movie’s song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The movie premiered in Hollywood on August 15th.

1953 – The Soviet Union secretly tested its first hydrogen bomb.

1960 – The balloon satellite Echo One was launched by the U.S. from Cape Canaveral, FL. It was the first communications satellite.

1962 – The Soviet Union launched Pavel Popovich into orbit. Popovich and Andrian Nikolayev, who was launch a day before, both landed on August 15.

1964 – Mickey Mantle set a major league baseball record when he hit home runs from both the left and ride sides of the plate in the same game.

1969 – The Boston Celtics were sold for $6 million. At the time it was the highest price paid for a pro basketball team.

1977 – The space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test.

1981 – IBM unveiled its first PC.

1986 – It was announced by NASA that they had selected a new rocket design for the space shuttle. The move was made in an effort at correcting the flaws that were believed to have been responsible for the Challenger disaster.

1986 – Rod Carew became the first player in the history of the California Angels franchise to have his uniform (#29) retired.

1992 – The U.S., Canada, and Mexico announced that the North American Free Trade Agreement had been created after 14 months of negotiations. 

1993 – U.S. President Clinton lifted the ban on rehiring air traffic controllers that had been fired for going on strike in 1981. 

1994 – Major league baseball players went on strike rather than allow team owners to limit their salaries. The strike lasted for 232 days. As a result, the World Series was wiped out for the first time in 90 years.

1998 – Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to World War II Holocaust victims.

1999 – Hang Thu Thi Ngyuen shot an arrow from a bow with her feet on “Guinness World Records: Primetime” and hit a target that was 16 feet and 5 inches away.

2000 – The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank and its 118-man crew died during naval exercises in the Barents Sea.

2004 – The California Supreme Court voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages that had been sanctioned in San Francisco earlier in the year.

2008 – Russia halted its five-day assault on Georgia.

1860 – The first successful silver mill in America began operations. The mill was in Virginia City, NV.

1874 – A patent for the sprinkler head was given to Harry S. Parmelee.

1877 – The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos.

1896 – Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain.

1909 – The American ship Arapahoe became the first to ever use the SOS distress signal off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC.

1921 – Alex Haley, author of Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X is born on this day in Ithaca, New York.

1924 – Newsreel pictures were taken of U.S. presidential candidates for the first time.

1934 – Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, received federal prisoners for the first time.

1941 – The Atlantic Charter was signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

1942 – During World War II, Pierre Laval publicly announced “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war.”

1945 – The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito’s future status after Japan’s surrender.

1951 – The first major league baseball game to be televised in color was broadcast. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 8-1.

1954 – Seven years of fighting came to an end in Indochina. A formal peace was in place for the French and the Communist Vietminh.

1962 – Andrian Nikolayev, of the Soviet Union, was launched on a 94-hour flight. He was the third Russian to go into space.

1965 – The U.S. conducted a second launch of “Surveyor-SD 2” for a landing on the Moon surface test.

1965 – Watts Riots begin The five days of violence left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and $40 million worth of property destroyed.

1971 – Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins got

1975 – The U.S. vetoed the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations. The Security Counsel had already refused to consider South Korea’s application.

1984 – Carl Lewis won his fourth gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1984 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio broadcast when, during testing of the microphone, the President said of the Soviet Union, “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” -a joke ?

1984 – The Cincinnati Reds honored major league All-Star and Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench by retiring his uniform (#5).

1988 – Dick Thornburgh was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the next attorney general. He succeeded Edwin Meese III.

1990 – Egyptian and Moroccan troops joined U.S. forces in Saudia Arabia to help protect from a possible Iraqi attack.

1991 – The space shuttle Atlantis ended its nine-day journey by landing safely.

1992 – In Bloomington, MN, the Mall of America opened. It was the largest shopping mall in the United States.

1994 – The Tenth International Conference on AIDS ended in Japan. 

1994 – A U.S. federal jury awarded $286.8 million to about 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. 

1995 – All U.S. nuclear tests were banned by President Clinton.

1997 – U.S. President Clinton made the first use of the line-item veto approved by Congress, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.

1998 – British Petroleum became No. 3 among oil companies with the $49 billion purchase of Amoco. It was the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. company.

2003 – Charles Taylor, President of Liberia, flew into exile after ceding power to his vice president, Moses Blah.

2003 – In Kabul, NATO took command of the 5,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.