Holly, Valens, Richardson (the Big Bopper) along with Dion and the Belmonts were on a road tour called Winter Dance Party. The groups were touring in unheated buses in freezing temperatures when Buddy Holly decided to charter a small plane to their next stop. The small plane could hold four people including the pilot, the cost was $36 person. He chartered it for himself and his two band mates, Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup.

During the tour J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper, had developed the flu and asked Jennings if he could go instead of him. Jennings agreed.

Jennings was until his death haunted over the crash in part over an exchange of words between him and Buddy Holly. Holly had said to Jennings, “”Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up.” Jennings responded, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.”

Ritchie Valens had never flown in a small plane and asked Tommy Allsup if he could have his seat. With a coin flip, tossed by the DJ at ballroom where they played that night, Valens had the last seat.

Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts was approached, but declined. He couldn’t see paying the price of 36 dollars, a sum which he had seen his parent argue over this price for apartment rent.

Mabel Normand, a popular silent film comedy actress, was at the Taylor home on February 1, leaving the house at 7:45. It is thought that she was the last person, other than the murderer who saw him alive. She left the house in a happy mood.

Taylor was born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner on April 26, 1872 in Ireland. He came to America in 1890. He married in 1901 to Ethel May Harrison whose father was a wall street broker. He vanished in 1908 deserting his wife and daughter.

While there were many suspects including Mabel Normand, Edward Sands – a former Taylor’s Valet, and Henry Peavy – Taylor’s Valet, no one was ever charged with the murder. Even to this day the identity of the actual murderer is unknown.

It has been discovered that Taylor had a relationship with teen screen actress Mary Miles Minter. At his death Taylor was 49 and she was 19. There is cause to believe that they may have had an intimate relationship prior to her turning 18. Minter’s mother Charlotte Shelby has also been linked as a possible suspect in the murder. Shelby, too, may have had an intimate relationship with Taylor.

From 1993 to 2000, Bruce Long collected and compiled information about Taylor and the murder. He called his effort Taylorology. It can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/

They were working on songs for a possible 1 hour following their album The Beatles (White Album). One idea for the show was for them to perform 8 songs in front of a live audience.

Soon it was decided instead of doing a TV special they would do a feature film showing them making their new album, at the time called Get Back. This album as well as film would become their final release, Let It Be. Later in 1969 they would return to the studio to record the songs for the album Abbey Road.

Since Beatles albums were known to take months to record and the film crew desire to be finish before this time on Sunday January 26 it was decided to do a roof-top unannounced concert the following Thursday.

During the forty-two minute concert they played five songs. Many of them more than once. The songs were “Get Back”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “I’ve Got a Feeling”, “One After 909″, and “Dig a Pony”. As a tune-up they also played parts of the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen” and a brief section of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, a song John Lennon was working on and released on Abbey Road.

The concert ended when police arrived to stop it. The last song played was “Get Back. This was the third time the band played the song, the only one that was played more than twice. While the police was trying to stop the concert Paul slightly changed the lyrics singing, “You’ve been playing on the roofs again, and you know your Momma doesn’t like it, she’s gonna have you arrested!”

When the shooter was arrested it was 16 year old Brenda Ann Spencer. The rifle she used during the shooting had been given to her as a Christmas gift from her father, only a few weeks before.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Her sentence was 25 years to life in prison and is currently at The California Institution for Women in Chino, California. She is up for parole in 2009.

When asked why she did the shooting one of her responses was, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

Bob Geldolf, who was the lead singer for the rock band Boomtown Rats, heard about the shooting and the statement of Spencer and wrote the song, “I Don’t Like Mondays.”

It was only a minor hit in the US but, it was a number 1 hit in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s many album rock stations played the song as the anthem for Mondays. Since some stations only played the chorus many people had no idea the true subject of the song was a school shooting.

Command Pilot Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward Higgins White, II and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee.

Gus Grissom, born on April 3, 1926 in Mitchell, Indiana, was one of the first astronauts selected in 1959 for the Mercury Program. He was the second person to fly in space on Liberty Bell 7 launched on on July 21, 1961. He also flew in the Gemini program as the Command Pilot on Gemini 3 launched on March 23, 1965.

Ed White, born November 14, 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, was chosen as one of the second group of astronauts in 1962. He was the pilot of Gemini 4 launched on June 3, 1965 and during that mission 4 hours after lift-off he performed the first Spacewalk by an American. He was outside of the capsule for 15 minutes 40 seconds.

Roger Chaffee, born February 15, 1935 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had been chosen as one of the third group of astronauts in 1963. This would have been his first mission into space.

Chaffee and Grissom are both buried in Section 3 of Arlington National Cemetery. White is buried at West Point Cemetery. These three fallen men were heroes in every sense of the word and even in death helped the United States become the only nation on earth to sent men to the moon.

From left to right; Grissom, White and Chaffee

It was first announced on the cover of the San Francisco Oracle first Issue as “A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In.”

Timothy Leary, one of the featured speakers, made his first appearance in San Francisco at the rally where he cried out the phrase”Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”. Others to speak were Poets Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lew Welch, and Lenore Kandel.

Music was also featured from Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. These bands have come to be best known as the psychedelic sounds of San Francisco of the late 1960′s.

Allen Cohen one of the organizers characterized the event as a necessary meeting-of-the-minds. At the time there was two philosphically opposed factions of the late 1966 San Francisco-based counter culture. On one side were the Berkeley radicals, who were tending toward increased militancy towards the policies of the Vietnam war, and then there was the Haight-Ashbury hippies, who leaned towards peaceful protest and ongoing joyful celebration through peace and love.

After this everything seemed to want to be IN and helped to give the name to the popular comedy Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in.