Happy 40th George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh (Video)

Happy 40th aniversary to George Harrison's ‘Concert for Bangladesh.’

The Concert For Bangladesh was the event title for two benefit concerts organized by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison which played to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Did you know that George Harrison's benefit concert was the very first fundraising concert for a cause of this magnitude in world history?

It has been the inspiration behind other humanitarian fundraising ventures since that historical day, August 1, 1971.

Concerts like: ‘Band Aid’ and ‘Live Aid’ were birthed from George Harrison's original idea.

“George Harrison was a pioneer who understood the power of rock music to move people to embrace causes larger than themselves,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman, according to the UNICEF site.

George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh was organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Bangladesh Liberation War.

Featured was a lineup of performers that not too many people would pass up hearing--they were:

Bob Dylan

Eric Clapton

Billy Preston

Leon Russell

Badfinger

Ringo Starr

Ravi Shankar

George Harrison

Can you imagine how amazing that concert must have been?

Release dates were:

Album -- 1971

Concert film -- 1972

Film to DVD -- 2005

The concert raised US $243,418.51 for Bangladesh relief, which was distributed by UNICEF.

To this day, sales of the DVD and album benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.