It was on this day in 1968 that the Rolling Stones put on a rock and roll circus. The event was filmed before an invited audience on a stage designed to look like a circus big top. Other musical acts included The Who, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal, and a “supergroup” made up of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell, and Yoko Ono. Even tho the show started in the early afternoon, delays and equipment malfunctions resulted in the Stones not performing their set until 5am the next morning. Originally intended to be broadcast on BBC, the band decided to not do so due to their lack-luster performance. Some of the footage was later used in a documentary about The Who, and an album & video of most of the show was released in 1996.
The earliest event that Wiki says happened on this day is “361 – Julian the Apostate enters Constantinople as sole Emperor of the Roman Empire” and the most recent is “2010 – Two explosions occur in a busy shopping district of Stockholm, Sweden, killing one and injuring two others. Officials say the incident is being treated as a terrorist attack.”
A few other things that also occurred on this day are:
1936 – The King of England gives up his throne in order to marry a divorced American woman.
1971 – The US Libertarian Party is formed.
2006 – The president of Mexico orders the military to put a stop to the drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacan, officially beginning what is now called the Mexican Drug War.
Happy birthday to David Schools, Nikki Sixx, Brenda Lee, and Teri Garr.