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1905--Existentialist French author Jean-Paul Sartre is born. Novelist, playwright, and philosopher, Sartre spent a year as a prisoner of war during World War II, and was one of the French intellectuals who openly resisted the Nazi occupation of France. He was famous for his philosophic work, “Being and Nothingness” in 1943, and his novel “Nausea.” He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964, but he declined to accept it, on the grounds that he did not wish to be “transformed into an institution.” In his renowned absurdist play “No Exit,” he claimed that "Hell is other people." John Lennon expressed a similar sentiment in 1980: "You want to help humanity, but it's people that you just can't stand."

1944--Literate songsmith of The Kinks, Ray Davies, is born in London. He and brother Dave Davies formed The Kinks, recording such hits as You Really Got Me (1964), Tired of Waiting For You (1965) and Lola (1970). He was also in the movie “Absolute Beginners” (1986). The original group was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

1947--Joey Molland of Badfinger is born in Liverpool, England. He joined the group after the band began recording, but played on their Top 10 hits, including Come and Get It (written and produced by Paul McCartney) and Day After Day.

1948--Columbia Records begins the first mass production of the 33-1/3 rpm LP.

1948--The first stored computer program is run, on Manchester Mark I.

1961--The Beatles perform at the Top Ten Club, Reeperbahn, Hamburg, West Germany.

1962--The Beatles perform at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, Wallasey. They appear as the support act to Bruce Channel, who had a recent Top Ten hit, Hey Baby! Brian Epstein had begun booking The Beatles as a support act to well-established artists, giving The Beatles much-needed exposure and, often, a chance to upstage the headliner. Bruce Channel's harmonica player, Delbert McClinton, gave John Lennon some tips on playing the "mouth organ," with the benefit being John's incredible harmonica work on a number of early Beatles songs, such as Love Me Do, Please Please Me, From Me To You and Little Child. Also appearing at the Tower this night are The Big Three, The Statesmen, and The Four Jays.

1963--The Daily Mirror splashes a story about the John Lennon / Bob Wooler fight incident on its back cover.

1963--The Beatles perform at the Odeon Cinema, Guildford, Surrey.

1964--The Beatles, on a world tour, arrive in Wellington, New Zealand.

1966--The Beatles in the recording studio (Studio Three, EMI Studios, London). Recording, from start to finish, John Lennon's song She Said She Said. The song is reportedly based on a bizarre conversation that Lennon had with Peter Fonda while John and George Harrison were tripping on LSD in Los Angeles. Fonda kept saying “I know what it’s like to be dead,” which troubled Lennon a lot at the time. He kept telling Fonda to “go away.”

1968--The Beatles in the recording studio (Studio Two, EMI Studios, London). Final overdubs for Revolution 1 (its title now official). Then both Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 are mixed into stereo, John Lennon having a grand time during the process.

1969--The Beatles' single, The Ballad of John and Yoko, reaches #1 in the UK charts.

1969--The Beatles' single, Get Back, is #1 in the US charts for the fifth straight week. This will be its final week in the #1 position.

1971--John Lennon and Yoko Ono, along with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, and T. Rex (among many others), lend their support to Edgar Broughton’s, Save A Life, an appeal in aid of the East Pakistani refugees in Bangladesh, which is launched by the Daily Mirror newspaper in London.

1973--The US Supreme Court rules that community standards should be taken into account in obscenity cases.

1980--Bert Kaempfert, the first person to contract and produce The Beatles, dies in Hamburg, Germany, at age 56.

1982--The heir presumptive to the British throne, Prince William, is born to Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

1989--John Lennon's 1965 four-door Bentley is auctioned. The Rolls Royce Phantom V had a psychedelic paint job, purple leather interior, pink carpet, and purple/green paisley curtains. The auto was originally black, but Lennon had the car re-painted and re-upholstered in 1967, provoking a denouncement in the British press from a traffic expert who asserted that the car's "startling appearance" posed a traffic hazard.

1990--Little Richard receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For more day-by-day history go to HistoryUnlimited.net