On This Day
On This Day… The Music Died!
Written by: George Chittenden : 01 Jul 2019
It was on this day, 3rd February, back in 1959 when three incredibly talented musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson AKA ‘The Big Bopper’, lost their lives in a plane crash. The tragedy occurred whilst the musicians were on tour, during a particularly freezing winter. The musicians were all suffering from the cold, largely during the journeys from venue to venue in their tour bus, a school bus that regularly broke down.
Conditions were so bad that Buddy Holly’s drummer had to leave the tour with frostbite. After performing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, they decided to charter a plane to take them to their next gig in Moorhead Minnesota, in order to avoid the freezing cold bus journey. The trio boarded the light aircraft and the plane took off at around 1pm with Buddy Holly sat upfront with the pilot. We will never really know for sure what happened, however the aircraft crashed only around five minutes into the flight and it’s fair to assume the pilot’s lack of experience played a part.
The planes disappearance wasn’t reported until 5am, and it took a further four hours to discover the wreckage. As you can imagine it left millions of people across America and the rest of the world mourning
On other days ...
| Month: | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | ||||||
We promote history by...
offering free articles and videos, providing free history experiences for children in schools and on weekends. Next year we will be visiting hospitals and providing unforgettable experiences to children who really need it and give them a chance to forget their condition, their treatment and their reality.
Please join others who support our free projects by giving a small donation. We can only continue our great work with your help.
