The Beatles and Bertrand Russell

The Beatles were so much a part of the youth movement that blossomed in the 1960s that it's amusing to think that one of the main issues that energized the movement--peace--came to the Beatles through a 92-year-old man.

As Paul McCartney explains in this clip from a January 14, 2009 interview on The View, it happened when he decided to pay a visit to philosopher Bertrand Russell. A co-founder of analytic philosophy, Russell had been a life-long social and political activist. During World War I, he was not allowed to travel freely in Britain due to his antiwar views.

Russell lost his fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was eventually jailed for six months for supposedly interfering with British Foreign Policy. After World War II, Russell lobbied strenuously for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In the 1960s, he opposed the Vietnam War.