What happened 50 years ago.
Led Zeppelin performed “Stairway to Heaven” live for the first time on March 5 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. According to bassist John Paul Jones, most of the listeners at the time “were all bored to tears waiting to hear something they knew.” The video below doesn’t show the first performance, but it’s still in the 1970s.
World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier defeated previously undefeated Muhammed Ali (known earlier as Cassius Clay) on March 8 by unanimous decision in what had been billed as “the fight of the century.” (More on the anniversary of this fight, as I attended a telecast of the bout.)
The 672nd and last original episode of The Red Skelton Hour was telecast on March 15, bringing the end to a 20-year run.
The Boston Patriots, new members of the National Football League (NFL), announced on March 22, prior to a new stadium opening in Foxborough, Mass, that a temporary name of “Bay State Patriots” would be changed to “New England Patriots.”
With a vote of 401 to 19, the US House of Representatives approved on March 23 a measure submitting the 26th amendment to the Constitution, which would lower the nationwide voting age to 18, to the states for ratification. The Senate had approved the same measure unanimously on March 10. The amendment was ratified more quickly than any other amendment, before or since, becoming effective 100 days later on July 1.
The Beverly Hillbillies was broadcast for the last time on March 23, after 274 episodes and nine seasons. The show had been rated #1 in its first season and finished among the top 20 most popular shows in each of the following seasons, except its last.
UCLA defeated Villanova, 68-62, to win the NCAA collegiate basketball championship on March 27. The game was played in the Houston Astrodome in front of a then-record 31,765 fans. It was the Bruins’ seventh NCAA crown in eight seasons. Led by consensus all-Americans Curtis Rowe and Sidney Wicks, UCLA had lost only once, to Notre Dame, in compiling a 29-1 record.
The Ed Sullivan Show had its finale on March 28. Debuting in 1948, the Sunday night fixture was telecast 1,068 times over 23 seasons. On the same day, Hogan’s Heroes ended its six-season run.
A US Army court martial on March 29 found 1st Lt. William Calley guilty of 22 murders in the 1969 My Lai massacre. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Army later reduced his sentence to 20 years and he was paroled in 1976 after serving a third of that sentence.
The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in Seattle, Wash., on March 30.