August 15: On This Day in World History … briefly
Rains caused muddy roads and fields and facilities were not equipped to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending; hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.
1969: Woodstock ‘n Roll
An estimated 300 000 people were expected to attend Woodstock, a music festival held August 15-18, 1969, at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Billed as ‘an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music’, it attracted an audience of more than 400 000.
It was held 70km southwest of Woodstock and alternatively referred to as the Bethel Rock Festival or the Aquarian Music Festival. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain. It has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation.
Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John P Roberts. Roberts and Rosenman financed the project.
Lang had some experience as a promoter, having co-organised the Miami Pop Festival on the East Coast the prior year, where an estimated 25 000 people attended the two-day event.
The event’s significance was reinforced by a 1970 Academy Award-winning documentary film, an accompanying soundtrack album, and a Joni Mitchell-written song that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort.
Starting in 1979, music events bearing the Woodstock name have been planned for major anniversaries including the tenth, 20th, 25th, 30th, 40th, and 50th. In 2004, Rolling Stone listed it as number 19 of the ’50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll’. In 2017, the festival site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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