1955 Elvis Presley released his first number 1 hit, ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget / Mystery Train’. It hit the top of the country charts several months later and stayed there for 5 weeks.

1960 A quartet comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best (later replaced by Ringo Starr) performs as "the Beatles" for the first time in Hamburg, Germany.

1964 Glasgow council in Scotland announced that all boys and men with Beatle styled haircuts would have to wear bathing caps after a committee was told that hair from ‘Beatle-cuts’ was clogging the pools filters.
1965 The Byrds were forced to cancel a concert during their UK tour at The Guildhall, Portsmouth when only 250 of the 4,000 tickets had been sold.

1969 The final day of the three day Woodstock festival took place at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Acts who appeared included Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Over 186,000 tickets had been sold but on the first day the flimsy fences and ticket barriers had come down. Organisers announced the concert would be a free event, prompting thousands more to head for the concert. There were two deaths - a teenager was killed by a tractor as he lay in his sleeping bag and another died from a drugs overdose.

1979 The New York Post reported that Anita Pallenberg (the wife of Keith Richards) was linked to a witches coven in South Salem, New York where Richards owned a house. A policeman claimed he was attacked by a flock of black-hooded, caped people and a local youth claimed he had been invited by Pallenburg to take part in ‘pot smoking sex orgies’. Locals also claimed they found ‘ritualistic stakes’ and small animals that had been ‘sacrificed’ near the house.

1999 Led Zeppelin topped a chart of Britain's most bootlegged musicians, compiled by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), after identifying 384 bootleg titles featuring Led Zeppelin performances. The bootleg chart was complied from the BPI's archive of some 10,000 recordings seized over the past 25 years. The Beatles, came in second with 320 entries, other acts listed included The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd.


2008 Jackson Browne was suing US Republican presidential candidate John McCain for using one of his songs without permission. Browne claimed the use of his song Running on Empty in an advert was an infringement of copyright and would lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. Browne was seeking more than $75,000 (£40,000) in damages.