Timeline: Music

• 2000 BCE
  The first examples of the lyre in the Bronze Age Aegean occur in the Cyclades and on Minoan Crete.
• c. 1700 BCE
  The earliest written hint to a hand-drum: the Jewish tof played by Moses’s sister, Miriam, in Exodus.
• 1420 BCE - 1300 BCE
  Clay dancing figures including a rare female lyre player are made in Minoan Palaikastro.
• c. 1400 BCE
  Lyres across the Aegean assume S-shaped arms and become more decoratively carved, most often with sculpted birds.
• 1250 BCE - 1200 BCE
  A Linear B tablet from Greek Thebes mentions lyre players as members of the royal palace staff.
• c. 750 BCE
  The earliest depiction of the tympanon on a bronze disc found in the Idaean Cave in Crete.
• c. 575 BCE
  Scythian Philosopher Anacharsis plays the tympanon in his celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, as accounted by Herodotus.
• c. 525 BCE
  The tympanon first appears on Greek pottery.
• c. 499 BCE - c. 456 BCE
  Aeschylus in The Edonians tells of the bull-roaring sound of the tympanon in the rites of the moon goddess, Kotys.
• c. 405 BCE
  Euripides in The Bacchai has Dionysos tell us how the tympanon was invented by him and his Mother Goddess, Rhea.
• 396 BCE
  Competitions for heralds and trumpeters were added to the schedule of the Olympic Games.
• 328 BCE
  Herodoros of Megara wins the first of ten consecutive trumpet competitions at the Olympic Games.
• c. 205 BCE
  The tympanon is adopted by the Romans together with the cult of Magna Mater.
• 1685 CE - 1750 CE
  Life of the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
• 24 Mar 1721 CE
  Composer Johann Sebastian Bach dedicates his six concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now known as the famous Brandenburg Concertos.
• 7 Apr 1724 CE
  Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion premieres on Good Friday during the vesper service at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig, Germany as part of the Good Friday liturgy.
• 14 Sep 1741 CE
  Composer George Frideric Handel completes his masterpiece Messiah, an English-language oratorio in three parts which went on to become one of the most frequently performed and best-loved choral works in the history of Western music.
• 13 Apr 1742 CE
  Handel's *Messiah* premieres at the Fishamble Street Music Hall in Dublin, Ireland as a charity concert to benefit local hospitals and prisons and is an immediate hit with a sold-out performance.
• 7 Nov 1786 CE
  The Stoughton Musical Society (now known as the Old Stoughton Musical Society) is formed when 25 men sign up as members at the home of Robert Capen in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It is the oldest choral society still in operation in the United States.
• 2 Apr 1800 CE
  Composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his first symphony at the Burgtheater, Vienna, Austria.
• 24 Dec 1818 CE
  The popular Christmas carol, "Silent Night" (original title in German, *Stille Nacht*) is first performed at the Nicolauskirche in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. The poem was written by Catholic priest Father Joseph Mohr in 1816. The melody was composed by musician and schoolmaster Franz Xaver Gruber. On Christmas Eve 1818, Mohr gave the lyrics to Gruber and asked if he could compose a melody on guitar for that evening's mass because the church organ was damaged. Since then, the poem has been translated into at least 300 languages.
• 7 May 1824 CE
  Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th symphony, regarded as his masterpiece, premieres at the Theater am Karntnertor, Vienna, Austria. Beethoven was deaf by this time and, although on stage, did not conduct. When the performance ended, he had to be turned around to see the standing ovation for his work as he could not hear it.
• 7 Dec 1842 CE
  The New York Philharmonic performs its first concert in the Apollo Rooms on lower Broadway, New York City, opening with Beethoven's *Symphony No. 5*, conducted by Ureli Corelli Hill, the philharmonic's founder. It is among the oldest musical organizations in the United States.
• 22 May 1874 CE
  Composer Giuseppe Verdi's *Requiem* premieres at the Church of San Marco, Milan, Italy, with Verdi as conductor, to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Italian poet and writer Alessandro Manzoni.
• 20 Aug 1882 CE
  Tchaikovsky's famous *1812 Overture* premieres in Moscow beneath a tent near the unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Savior, in commemoration of the Russian defense against the French attempt at invasion in 1812.
• 1906 CE - 1975 CE
  Life of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.
• 15 Oct 1923 CE
  Henry Cowell, eccentric avant-garde American composer and pianist, causes a riot at the Gewandhaus concert hall, Leipzig, Germany during his first European tour when the audience objects loudly and violently to his performance, leading to the police arresting twenty rioters.
• 28 Nov 1925 CE
  The Grand Ole Opry country music radio broadcast is founded as the *WSM Barn Dance* (WSM being the radio station) by program director George D. Hay in Nashville, Tennessee, changing its name in 1927, and going national in 1939 through NBC Radio. It is the longest-running radio show in US history.
• 8 Jan 1935 CE
  Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Mississippi, eventually becoming "The King of Rock & Roll" by blending Black rhythm and blues with country and gospel music that appealed to a White audience and essentially created modern popular music.
• 9 Apr 1939 CE
  African American Marian Anderson sings at an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refuse to allow her to perform at Constitution Hall before an integrated audience. The 9 April performance, before an integrated crowd, drew over 75,000 people and is a significant moment in the history of civil rights in the USA.
• 21 Jun 1948 CE
  Columbia Records debuts their 33 1/3 RPM long-playing vinyl record (the LP) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, playing a recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor. Developed by engineer Dr. Peter Goldmark, the invention revolutionized the music industry.
• 9 Sep 1956 CE
  American singer Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, drawing an audience of over 60 million viewers and making Presley a national superstar. Sullivan was not hosting that night, due to a recent car accident, and Presley was introduced by actor Charles Laughton, performing "Don't Be Cruel", "Love Me Tender", "Ready Teddy", and "Hound Dog.".
• 4 Dec 1956 CE
  The Million Dollar Quartet jam session occurs when Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley arrive by chance at Sun Record Studios, Memphis, Tennessee, and begin playing together spontaneously. The event is among the most iconic in the history of early popular music.
• 5 Mar 1963 CE
  Country music singer Patsy Cline dies when the plane piloted by her manager, Randy Hughes, goes down in bad weather near Camden, Tennessee, killing Cline, Hughes, and singers Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins. Cline was only 30 years old.
• 26 Dec 1963 CE
  "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles is released in the United States with "I Saw Her Standing There" as the B=Side, becoming The Beatles' first number 1 hit in the USA and setting off the cultural phenomenon of Beatlemania in America.
• 20 Jan 1964 CE
  The album "Meet the Beatles" is released by Capitol Records in the USA, further encouraging Beatlemania and changing the face of American pop culture and music.
• 7 Feb 1964 CE
  The Beatles arrive at JFK Airport in the United States and are welcomed by 3,000-5,000 shrieking fans, marking their first visit to the US and encouraging the phenomenon of Beatlemania, which received an even greater boost two nights later when the band appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February, a live television event watched by 73.7 million people.
• 15 Aug 1965 CE
  Opening night of The Beatles' concert at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, where they performed a 30-minute set before an audience of 55,000, establishing the record for the highest concert attendance in the United States until 1973 when it was broken by Led Zeppelin at their Tampa, Florida concert. The Beatles' Shea Stadium shows are regarded as the beginning of stadium rock.
• 16 Jun 1967 CE
  The Monterey International Pop Festival begins at Monterey County Fairgrounds, California, considered the beginning of the "Summer of Love." The festival included performances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding.
• 12 Dec 1968 CE
  The made-for-TV concert, *The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,* finishes filming at 5:00 am after a 15-hour performance by artists including The Who, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, The Dirty Mac (John Lennon's super group, which only performed this one time) and, of course, The Rolling Stones. The film was supposed to highlight the Stones, who played last, but by that time the band was tired and lead singer Mick Jagger felt it was a poor performance and refused to release it. The film finally came out in October 1996.
• 30 Dec 1968 CE
  The first audio recording of a Led Zeppelin concert is made by an unknown student at Gonzaga University's Kennedy Pavilion in Spokane, Washington using a hand-held tape recorder. The band was the warm-up act for Vanilla Fudge, were relatively unknown, and were billed as "Len Zefflin" in local advertisements for the show. The iconic recording is now known as *Gonzaga `68*.
• 15 Aug 1969 CE
  The Woodstock Music and Art Fair begins in Bethel, New York, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm, drawing an audience of over 400,000 people between the 15th and 18th and becoming one of the most iconic events of the 1960's.
• 6 Dec 1969 CE
  The Altamont Speedway Free Festival is held at Altamont Speedway, Tracy, California, envisioned as a "Woodstock West" in recreating the "three days of peace and love" of that festival held in August of the same year. The Altamont Festival was a disaster, however, resulting in four deaths and widespread violence by the crowd and Hells Angels which became so out of control that The Grateful Dead, which had helped in producing the show, refused to play and left the venue early. The event is often referenced as the end of the 1960's counterculture era.
• 6 Aug 1970 CE
  The Festival for Peace concert is held at Shea Stadium, Queens, New York to mark the 25th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima and raise money for peace initiatives. It was the second such concert that year and featured performances by artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, and many others. The event inspired George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and later benefit concerts such as Live Aid.
• 1 Aug 1971 CE
  The Concert for Bangladesh, a pair of concerts to benefit refugees from East Pakistan, organized by former Beatle George Harrison, is performed at Madison Square Garden, featuring artists including Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, among many others. It was inspired by the Festival for Peace concerts of 1970.
• 20 Sep 1973 CE
  Singer-songwriter Jim Croce and four others die in a plane crash shortly after takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana, USA, one hour after Croce had finished a concert and en route to another. Croce became famous for songs that have now become classics including *Time in a Bottle*, *I Got a Name*, and *Bad, Bad Leroy Brown*.
• 31 Mar 1995 CE
  Pop star Selena Quintanilla-Perez, the "Queen of Tejano Music", is shot and killed at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas by Yolanda Saldivar, the president of her fan club. Saldivar had embezzled enormous amounts of money from Selena and, when confronted, killed the singer. Selena's murder drew global attention in an outpouring of grief and Saldivar was sentenced to life in prison.