History offers
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understand
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impacts the now.

Follow our
daily timelime
of historical
events to
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role The Beatles
played in changing
the modern world.

1374--An outbreak of Dancing Mania (sometimes known as “St. John’s Dance”) erupts in Aix-la-Chapelle, wherein people are overcome by the ravages of uncontrollable, manic dance. Frothing at the mouth, diabolical screaming, and sexual frenzy were not unheard of in regard to the condition. Ergot (fungus) madness is now suspected as being the ultimate cause of the mania, which lasted well into the month of July.

1497--The first recorded sighting of North America by a European took place as explorer John Cabot spotted land, probably in present-day Canada.

1509--Henry VIII is crowned King of England.

1901--The first exhibition by the 19-year-old painter, Pablo Picasso, opens in Paris to critical acclaim.

1944--Bruce Johnston, of The Beach Boys, is born.

1944--Rock guitarist, Jeff Beck, is born in Surrey, England.

1947--The first widely reported sighting of "flying saucers" is made over the Cascades, near Mt. Rainier, Washington by pilot Ken Arnold. It sets off a national fixation with unidentified flying objects.

1949--"Hopalong Cassidy" becomes the first network western on NBC-TV.

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

1962--The Beatles perform at the Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool. This is The Beatles' final appearance at this club, which will close at the end of the month.

1963--The Beatles, at London's Playhouse Theatre, tape an appearance for the BBC radio program "Saturday Club." They perform I Got to Find My Baby, Memphis, Money, Till There Was You, From Me to You, and Roll Over Beethoven. Broadcast on June 29. The last two songs were included in the portion of the program broadcast overseas.

1963--At the BBC Studios in London, the first demonstration is made of a home video recorder.

1964--The Beatles perform two shows at Town Hall, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand.

1964--The Federal Trade Commission, acting on an unfavorable report from the Surgeon General, announces that health warnings will be put on cigarette packages.

1965--John Lennon's second book, "A Spaniard In the Works," is published in the UK by Jonathan Cape. “I wrote it with a bottle of Johnnie Walker,” John says years later, indicating that he didn’t enjoy being pressured into writing his second foray into the world of literature. The book is heavy with political cynicism and sarcasm, throws a couple of veiled verbal assaults at his father, and otherwise concentrates on nonsense. Although Lennon is offered a lucrative deal to write a third book for Cape, he backs down just before the proposed delivery date of his manuscript.

1965--The Beatles, on a tour in Europe, perform two shows at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan, Italy. The performances are staged in a 22,000-seat open-air arena. Neither is a sell-out, with only 7,000 people attending the afternoon show and 20,000 coming to the night performance. A severe heat wave is blamed as part of the reason for the relatively low attendance in the afternoon. Italian newspapers are less kind, saying The Beatles are "No more than four ugly faces, four long heads of hair, four sublime idiots, four barefoot bums...but they succeeded in creating a spectacle that one can only admire."

1966--The Beatles perform two shows at the Circus-Krone-Bau in Munich, West Germany. These are the first concerts of a short international tour. The song list for the tour is Rock and Roll Music, She's a Woman, If I Needed Someone, Day Tripper, Baby's In Black, I Feel Fine, Yesterday, I Wanna Be Your Man, Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer, and I'm Down. The support acts are Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, The Rattles, and Peter and Gordon. The second concert is filmed and broadcast later as "Die Beatles." The Beatles had not rehearsed and are ill-prepared to perform live. Before I'm Down, Paul McCartney has to consult with John Lennon and George Harrison to remember the lyrics, but he fouls them up anyway. The Beatles' musicianship on the tour is lousy. The atmosphere is complicated by a ticket falsification scheme that had been discovered by the police.

1967--The Beatles in the recording studio (Studio One, EMI Studios, London). Recording overdubs for All You Need Is Love. A decision has been made to issue the song as a single after the “Our World” broadcast scheduled for the next day. In the late morning, Abbey Road studios are opened to over 100 reporters and photographers. Then from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The Beatles are recording for the BBC.

1967--The Beatles dress up in sandwich boards painted with “All You Need Is Love” in different languages, and they conduct a photo shoot in an alley outside Abbey Road Studios, to promote their single, All You Need Is Love.

1975--The US attorney of Newark, New Jersey, indicts 19 music business executives, including Arista CEO Clive Davis, on counts of income tax evasion and payola. The indictments are the result of a two-year investigation.

1977--UK release of The Beatles’ single, Twist and Shout / Falling in Love Again (Lingasong). Selections from the “Star-Club tapes” double LP.

1980--In the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, John Lennon spots a freesia hybrid named “Double Fantasy.” He will borrow that name for the title of the album he is now planning to record upon his return to New York.

1984--At an auction in New York, Yoko Ono sells many items from her private collection. The sale is entitled “Yoko’s Attic Sales.”

1999--The first permanent exhibition of John Lennon's artwork (drawings and prints) opens at the Mathew Street Gallery in Liverpool, England. Ian Wallace, who began collecting Lennon limited editions in the early 1990s, was the driving force behind the opening of the gallery. The gallery is located just yards from the original site of the Cavern Club, where Lennon (as a member of The Beatles) paid his musical dues. Wallace said, "Where else should you have a John Lennon gallery but in Liverpool?" John Lennon was a student at the Liverpool College of Art between 1957 and 1960.

1999--Eric Clapton auctions off one hundred of his guitars in New York to raise money for the Crossroads Clinic in Antigua. The 1956 Fender Stratocaster on which he composed Layla fetches a record price of $497,500.

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