The history of Eurovision

The first Eurovision contest was held on 24^th May 1956, where the participants were only from seven countries. The European Song Contest is based on the Italian Sanremo Music Festival. The first host of the contest was Lugano, Switzerland, where the winner was Lys Assia with the song ‘Refrain’.

In the beginning, the songs had to be sung in the participants’ native language, but then in 1965 after the song ‘Absent Friend’ was presented in English the European Broadcasting Union gave the opportunity to all of the participants from then on to sing their songs in English. Afterward The European Broadcasting union set very strict rules, in which it is said that the song has to be written only in English or the native language.

At first the songs were supposed to be presented with a live orchestra, but when the contest and the entire music styles was in a period of modernization it looked as if the live playback with an orchestra should not be obligatory. Since the days of live bands and violins came, no attempt to return to the orchestra type as obligatory was made.

There are a lot of famous competitors that have taken part in the contest. These are ABBA, Céline Dion, Nana Mouskouri, Karel Gott, Sandie Shaw, Gina G, Vicky Leandros, Sir Cliff Richard, Lulu, New Seekers, Mary Hopkin, Julio Iglesias, Mocedades, Olivia Newton-John, The Shadows, Las Ketchup, Baccara, Lara Fabian, Domenico Modugno etc.. For example, in 1974 ABBA became the winner with the song Waterloo. Usually when most of the participants take part in this contest, they can became more famous than they had expected.