This Day in History:
Woodstock Begins in
Bethel, New York August 15, 1969 On 600 acres of field owned by a dairy
farmer, 400,000 young people
kicked off this seminal
event of the 1960s. The three day music
festival had a roster of
many of the era's top musicians. Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix,
Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead, Janis
Joplin, Crosby Stills and Nash, and the
Who were just some of the performers. The festival was initially
meant as a paid event
for ticket holders. But the crowd — made up of young people from
all over the country — doubled attendance
estimates, forcing the promoters
to make it a free event. Though the festival was
plagued by rain and shortages,
its legacy is the representative
example of the 1960s counterculture.