1965 - 56,000 people packed Shea Stadium in New York to see, and maybe even hear, the Beatles. At the time it was the largest single audience on record to attend a pop concert. The Beatles were paid $160,000 for the show.

1969 - "Three Days Of Peace & Music," also known as The Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, began at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. More than 400,000 people attended and thirty-two acts performed including Joan Baez, Santana, Grateful Dead, CCR, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, The Band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Jimi Hendrix.

1979 - Led Zeppelin release their eighth and final studio album, In Through The Out Door. It's the last album released by the band while drummer John Bonham is still alive. Led Zeppelin decided to push into new sonic territory, a good deal of this aural adventurism derived from internal tensions within the band. Jimmy Page and John Bonham were in the throes of their own addictions, leaving Plant and John Paul Jones alone in the studio to play with the bassist's new keyboard during the day. While Zeppelin expressed some reservations about the album after it came out, it did suggest a future that never materialized for the band. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Birthdays:

1930 - R&B singer/saxophonist Jackie Brenston is born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Sang lead on Ike Turner's "Rocket 88." The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognized this as the first rock and roll song ever recorded.

Bobby Helms, country music singer best known for his 1957 hit "Jingle Bell Rock", was born today in 1933.

Jimmy Webb is 76. He wrote the 1968 hit for Richard Harris 'MacArthur Park', plus 'Galveston', for Glen Campbell (and other hits for Campbell), and 'Up Up and Away', a hit for 5th Dimension. According to BMI, his song 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.

Tom Johnston of The Doobie Brothers is 74.

Matt Johnson of The The is 61.

Ted Dwane of Mumford & Sons is 38.

David Welsh of The Fray is 38.

On this Day In Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.