This Day in History--August 17, the last day of Woodstock

The last day of the Woodstock Festival was puncutated by Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." The three-day event, held on Max Yasgur's 50-acre farm in Bethel, NY, outside the town of Woodstock, brought hundreds of thousands of young people to an amazing music festival.

Musicians such as Jefferson Airplane, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, the Band, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Sly and the Family Stone played. People danced, tried to cope with the rain and mud and ingested drugs, according to many of those attending. There wasn't violence, though two people died, one in a tractor accident, one of a drug overdose.

Many of the performers were against the U.S. being involved in the Vietnam War, a sentiment shared by many of those in attendance.The event gave rise to a term for the counterculture of the those in their 20s: Woodstock Nation.

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