1929 - Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player in MLB history to hit 500 career home runs.
1937 - The electric guitar is patented. The acoustic guitar proved too quiet for ensembles made of brass, woodwind and orchestral string instruments. So George D. Beauchamp made the Frying Pan, a guitar that transformed vibrating strings into an electrical signal and amplified much louder.
1942 - Movie actress Hedy Lamarr and music composer George Antheil receive a patent for a radio-controlled torpedo guidance system, laying the groundwork for modern WiFi and Bluetooth.
1952 - Four years before Elvis Presley would make “Hound Dog” his longest running no. 1 hit, the song is recorded for the very first time by the rhythm-and-blues singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton in Los Angeles, California.
1969 - The famous Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in the upstate New York town of Bethel.
1990 - Fossil hunter, Susan Hendrickson, discovers the T-rex skeleton called “Sue” in South Dakota. Sue is the largest T-rex skeleton ever found and was 90% complete when found.
“Three Days of Peace and Music”
On August 15, 1969, a small group of organizers opened the gates of the famous Woodstock Festival. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the artsy New York town of Woodstock. Artists like Bob Dylan were already living and recording nearby.
They sold a total of 186,000 tickets. However, thousands of eager early arrivals were pushing against the entrance gates. Fearing they could not control the crowds, the promoters made the decision to open the concert to everyone, free of charge. Close to half a million people attended Woodstock, jamming the roads with eight miles of traffic.
Bathroom facilities, food stations and first-aid tents were overwhelmed. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard was almost called in. The festival was remarkably peaceful though. Only three deaths were recorded. Two overdoses and a man was run over by a tractor while sleeping in a hay field.
Though Woodstock had left its promoters nearly bankrupt, their ownership of the film and recording rights more than compensated for the losses after the release of a hit documentary film in 1970. Approximately 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock Ventures, primarily by farmers in the area. The movie financed settlements and paid off the $1.4 million of debt, equivalent to $12.3 million today.v
Thirty-two acts performed during the 3-day festival. Creedence Clearwater Revival was the first to sign. Other acts include Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.
The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history. It was the defining moment of 1960’s counterculture and for the silent and early baby boomer generations.
The influential American singer and songwriter, Willie May Thorton, singing “Hound Dog” four years before Elvis covered it.