Clear Lake, Iowa, Plane Crash: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson; February 3, 1959

The Day the Music Died, an expression coined by Don McLean in his song "American Pie", is a reference to the deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. Pilot Roger Peterson was also killed.

After terminating his partnership with The Crickets, Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch to play on the "Winter Dance Party" tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens and Richardson joined the tour as well.

The distance between venues and the conditions aboard the poorly equipped tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly decided to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who was affected by the flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking the latter's place on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

Soon after take-off, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the airplane, a small Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield, leaving no survivors.