Different.

July 5 – two days after the death of band mate Brian Jones.

The 27-year-old was found dead in the swimming pool at his home in Surrey and the free concert became a tribute to the guitarist with Mick Jagger reading the poem Adonais by Shelley featuring the line “Peace, peace! He is not dead, he doth not sleep. He hath awaken’d from the dream of life.” The poem was followed by the release of thousands of butterflies among the crowds.

Desmond Dekker and the Aces were also enjoying success with The Israelites while the Archies were at number one with Sugar Sugar. Meanwhile, a 500,000-strong crowd of music lovers braved the rain and blocked toilets to attend the three-day Woodstock Music Festival at White Lake, New York, in August.

Described as “an Aquarian Exposition,” the bill included The Who, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Football star Pele marked 1969 by scoring his 1,000th goal on November 20 and the year’s top movies included Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and Barbra Streisand as matchmaker Dolly Levi in the film version of musical Hello Dolly!

One of the biggest box office hits of the year was Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The movie about the likeable bank robbers went on to win four Oscars, including Best Song for Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head, and nine Bafta awards.