On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of
farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.

Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael
Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a
recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock,
New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob
Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson
Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis
Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more.

Plans for the festival were on the verge of foundering, however, after
both Woodstock and the nearby town of Wallkill denied permission to
hold the event. Dairy farmer Max Yasgur came to the rescue at the last
minute, giving the promoters access to his 600 acres of land in Bethel,
some 50 miles from Woodstock.

Jimi Hendrix was at Woodstock

No Tags

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act on
August 14, 1935. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR (above)
flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act,
which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR
commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.

Roosevelt had taken the helm of the country in 1932 in the midst of the
Great Depression, the nation’s worst economic crisis. The Social Security
Act (SSA) was in keeping with his other “New Deal” programs, including
the establishment of the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which attempted to hoist America out of the Great
Depression by putting Americans back to work.

No Tags

Shortly after midnight on this day in 1961, East German soldiers begin laying
down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East
Berlin and the democratic western section of the city.

After World War II, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American,
British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though technically
part of the Soviet zone, was also split, with the Soviets taking the eastern part
of the city. After a massive Allied airlift in June 1948 foiled a Soviet attempt to blockade West Berlin, the eastern section was drawn even more tightly into
the Soviet fold. Over the next 12 years, cut off from its western counterpart
and basically reduced to a Soviet satellite, East Germany saw between 2.5
million and 3 million of its citizens head to West Germany in search of better opportunities. By 1961, some 1,000 East Germans—including many skilled
laborers, professionals and intellectuals—were leaving every day.

No Tags

Highway Patrol is a 156-episode action crime drama series produced
for syndication from 1955 to 1959. The TV series starred Broderick
Crawford (below) as Dan Mathews as the gruff and dedicated head
of a police force in an unidentified Western state.

“Ten-4”

No Tags

Trinidad "Trini" López III (May 13, 1937 – August 11, 2020)

Trini Lopez was an American singer, guitarist, and actor. His first album
included a version of "If I Had a Hammer", which earned a Golden Disc
for him. His other hits included "Lemon Tree", "I’m Comin’ Home, Cindy"
and "Sally Was a Good Old Girl". He designed two guitars for the Gibson
Guitar Corporation, which are now collectors’ items. He died at Desert
Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California after suffering  from complications of COVID-19.

Trini Lopez as seen in the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen”. 

No Tags