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understand
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impacts the now.

Follow our
daily timelime
of historical
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role The Beatles
played in changing
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1850--Paul Julius Reuter, founder of the news agency that bears his name, uses 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices between Brussels and Aachen.

1856--Charles Luttwedge Dodgson meets the little girl, Alice Liddell, whom he would later (as “Lewis Carroll”) immortalize in the “Alice In Wonderland” books.

1867--Tokyo, Japan is opened for international trade.

1901--New York becomes the first state requiring auto license plates ($1 fee).

1912--Gladys Presley, the mother of Elvis, is born. On her 42nd birthday, Heartbreak Hotel went to No. 1 on the charts. Gladys Presley is responsible for rock and roll as much as her famous son. In 1953, when Elvis was still a truck driver for Crown Electric in Memphis, he stopped into the studios of Sun Records on his lunch hour to record two songs for his mother’s birthday present. If not for her birthday, Elvis may have never stepped into a recording studio. It would take until July 1954 for Sam Phillips to recognize the prize he had in the young man. The rest, as they say, is history.

1954--Bell Labs announces the first successful operation of the solar battery.

1959--Buddy Holly's It Doesn't Matter Anymore is a bigger hit in England than it is the US. It is a #1 hit in England, compared to a #13 hit in America.

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

1961--Elvis Presley makes his last stage appearance for nearly eight years at Bloch Arena in Hawaii.

1962--The Beatles perform at the Star-Club, Hamburg, West Germany.

1963--The Beatles perform at the Fairfield Hall Ballroom, Croydon, Surrey. This is yet another "Mersey Beat Showcase," and it had been arranged prior to The Beatles' having their first #1 single and before Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and The Big Three had become known outside of Liverpool.

1964--Can't Buy Me Love is the #1 single in the US for the 4th week in a row.

1964--The Beatles rehearse for their television special "Around the Beatles."

1964--Peter and Gordon reach No. 1 on the UK pop chart with World Without Love, a Lennon-McCartney song.

1966--"Pop" is the feature story in Newsweek magazine. It covers TV shows like "Batman" and artists like Andy Warhol.

1967--The Beatles in the recording studio (Studio Three, EMI Studios, London). Just days after the completion of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles embark upon their next project: a film to be called "Magical Mystery Tour." Recording of the title track is begun with the taping of three takes of the basic rhythm track and the assembling of coach and traffic noises into a tape loop (courtesy of Abbey Road's tape library, Volume 36: Traffic Noise Stereo).

1968--The Beatles refuse to perform for the Queen of England at a British Olympic Appeal Fund show. Ringo Starr explains, "Our decision would be the same no matter what the cause. We don't do benefits."

1969--John Lennon and Yoko Ono's film "Rape" is shown at a television festival in Montreaux, Switzerland.

1970--As John and Yoko carry on with their Primal Scream therapy in California, Fluxfest continues with “Measure by John and Yoko,” an exhibit in which the vital statistics of the spectators comprise the art.

1971--Two hundred thousand anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington, D.C.

1976--Pleased by how well the two of them got on together the night before, Paul McCartney returns to John Lennon’s Dakota apartment this evening. Unfortunately the welcome is not so warm, as John recalls in the September 1980 Playboy magazine interviews: “That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him: ‘Please call before you come over. It’s not 1956, and turning up at the door isn’t the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.’ That upset him, but I didn’t mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of the baby all day, and some guy turns up at the door with a guitar.” Paul departs, unaware that he will never see John again.

1977--During a concert at the Civic Center in Saginaw, Michigan, Elvis Presley makes what will be the last recordings of his life. Three songs from the show will appear, in heavily overdubbed mixes, on the posthumously released Presley album Moody Blue.

1984--Paul McCartney disbands his rock group, Wings.

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