Live Aid concert 1985
On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles
and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert
organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans.
Continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and at other arenas around the
world, the 16-hour “superconcert” was globally linked by satellite to
more than a billion viewers in 110 nations. In a triumph of technology
and good will, the event raised more than $125 million in famine relief
for Africa.
Live Aid was the brainchild of Bob Geldof, the singer of an Irish
rock group called the Boomtown Rats. In 1984, Geldof traveled to
Ethiopia after hearing news reports of a horrific famine that had killed
hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and threatened to kill millions
more. After returning to London, he called Britain’s and Ireland’s top
pop artists together to record a single to benefit Ethiopian famine
relief. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was written by Geldof and
Ultravox singer Midge Ure and performed by “Band Aid,” an ensemble that
featured Culture Club, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, U2, Wham!, and others.
It was the best-selling single in Britain to that date and raised more
than $10 million.
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was also a No. 1 hit in the United
States and inspired U.S. pop artists to come together and perform “We
Are the World,” a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie.
“USA for Africa,” as the U.S. ensemble was known, featured Jackson,
Ritchie, Geldof, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon,
Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and many others. The
single went to the top of the charts and eventually raised $44 million.
With the crisis continuing in Ethiopia, and the neighboring Sudan
also stricken with famine, Geldof proposed Live Aid, an ambitious global
charity concert aimed at raising more funds and increasing awareness of
the plight of many Africans. Organized in just 10 weeks, Live Aid was
staged on Saturday, July 13, 1985. More than 75 acts performed,
including Elton John, Madonna, Santana, Run DMC, Sade, Sting, Bryan
Adams, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Queen, Duran Duran, U2,
the Who, Tom Petty, Neil Young, and Eric Clapton. The majority of these
artists performed at either Wembley Stadium in London, where a crowd of
70,000 turned out, or at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, where 100,000
watched. Thirteen satellites beamed a live television broadcast of the
event to more than one billion viewers in 110 countries. More than 40 of
these nations held telethons for African famine relief during the
broadcast.
A memorable moment of the concert was Phil Collins’ performance in
Philadelphia after flying by Concorde from London, where he performed at
Wembley earlier in the day. He later played drums in a reunion of the
surviving members of Led Zeppelin. Beatle Paul McCartney and the Who’s
Pete Townsend held Bob Geldof aloft on their shoulders during the London
finale, which featured a collective performance of “Do They Know It’s
Christmas?” Six hours later, the U.S. concert ended with “We Are the
World.”
Live Aid eventually raised $127 million in famine relief for African
nations, and the publicity it generated encouraged Western nations to
make available enough surplus grain to end the immediate hunger crisis
in Africa. Geldof was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his
efforts.
In early July 2005, Geldof staged a series of “Live 8″ concerts in 11
countries around the world to help raise awareness of global poverty.
Organizers, led by Geldof, purposely scheduled the concert days before
the annual G8 summit in an effort to increase political pressure on G8
nations to address issues facing the extremely poor around the world.
Live 8 claims that an estimated 3 billion people watched 1,000 musicians
perform in 11 shows, which were broadcast on 182 television networks
and by 2,000 radio stations. Unlike Live Aid, Live 8 was intentionally
not billed as a fundraiser–Geldof’s slogan was, “We don’t want your
money, we want your voice.” Perhaps in part because of the spotlight
brought to such issues by Live 8, the G8 subsequently voted to cancel
the debt of 18 of the world’s poorest nations, make AIDS drugs more
accessible, and double levels of annual aid to Africa, to $50 billion by
2010.
(More Events on This Day in History)
-
American Revolution
- 1787 Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance
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Automotive
- 1978 Henry Ford II fires Lee Iacocca
-
Civil War
- 1861 Union routs Rebels at the Battle of Corrick’s Ford
-
Cold War
- 1948 Democratic Party platform defends Roosevelt-Truman foreign policies
-
Crime
- 1955 Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain
-
Disaster
- 1951 Record-breaking floods hit Kansas
-
General Interest
- 1793 Charlotte Corday assassinates Marat
- 1943 Largest tank battle in history ends
- 1960 Kennedy nominated for presidency
-
Hollywood
- 1990 Ghost opens
-
Literary
- 1798 Wordsworth visits Tintern Abbey
-
Music
- 1985 Live Aid is held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia and broadcast live throughout the world
-
Old West
- 1866 Construction begins on Fort Phil Kearny
-
Presidential
- 1985 Reagan’s doctors discover possibly cancerous colon polyp
-
Sports
- 1930 First World Cup
- 2010 Legendary New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner dies
-
Vietnam War
- 1968 Rockefeller announces new peace proposal
- 1969 Wallace criticizes Nixon’s handling of the war
-
World War I
- 1914 Austrian investigation into archduke’s assassination concludes
-
World War II
- 1944 Soviet General Konev establishes a new western border for the USSR
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