The hair raised eyebrows, but the screaming caused the real trouble. One television appearance brought the Rolling Stones face to face with America’s generation gap.
Getting heard over the audience was half the battle. On October 25, 1964, the Rolling Stones made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, sending the studio audience into such a frenzy that the host repeatedly demanded quiet.
Sixty-two years ago today, Mick Jagger launched into Chuck Berry’s Around and Around, with Keith Richards and Brian Jones beside him. Later, the band returned to close the programme with Time Is on My Side. The screaming continued between their appearances, testing the patience of a presenter accustomed to keeping his variety show moving.
For teenagers, the untidy hair and swagger were part of the attraction. Some adults were considerably less impressed.
Afterwards, Sullivan reportedly insisted they would need reforming in matters of dress and shampoo before returning. Yet back they came the following spring, eventually making six appearances altogether. Whatever he thought of their grooming, the Stones were proving difficult to ignore.
Fifty-five years ago on October 25, 1971, Roy O. Disney (with Mickey Mouse beside him) formally dedicated Walt Disney World in Florida to his younger brother, Walter Elias Disney, who passed away in 1966. The resort had already welcomed its first guests on October 1; this ceremony honoured the man whose imagination had inspired it.
An ordinary dinner plate became an extraordinary historical record on October 25, 1616. Dutch captain Dirk Hartog landed on the island now bearing his name off Western Australia. His crew left an inscribed pewter plate attached to a post, recording their visit. Four hundred and ten years later, that plate survives in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum as a tangible reminder of the voyage.
Helen Reddy, born in Melbourne in 1941, would have turned 85. Her hits included I Am Woman and Delta Dawn. She died in 2020.
Marion Ross turns 98. As Marion Cunningham in Happy Days, she became a familiar television mum to generations of viewers.
Do you remember?
Which Rolling Stones song takes you straight back to your younger days?
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