Yesterday is the name of a song written by Paul McCartney, originally recorded by The Beatles for their album Help! in 1965. "Yesterday" was the first official recording by the group which relied upon a performance by a single member of the band, although the background accompaniment of a string quartet was added a few days later during the editing stage. It is a ballad about unrequited love, and differed greatly from other works by the Beatles, leading the other three members of the band to veto the song's release as a single in the United Kingdom. Although solely written by McCartney, due to his contract with the Beatles the song was credited to both him and John Lennon as "Lennon/McCartney". According to the Guinness Book of Records, "Yesterday" has the most cover versions (over three thousand) of any song yet produced. BMI asserts that it was performed over seven million times during the 20th century alone.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_%28song%29

Today's selected anniversaries:

1540 Pope Paul III gave the final approval to the formation of the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius of Loyola. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus)

1940 The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by the major Axis Powers — Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact)

1983 Richard Stallman announced the GNU project to develop a free Unix-like operating system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU)

1996 The Taliban drove President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of the Afghan capital of Kabul, executed former President Mohammad Najibullah, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban)

Wikiquote of the day:

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." ~ Jonathan Swift (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift)