60th Anniversary of The Beatles first appearing on Ed Sullivan, Feb 9th, 1964

60th Anniversary of The Beatles first appearing on Ed Sullivan, Feb 9th, 1964

On This Day in 1964 – The Ed Sullivan Show.

The rest, as they say, is history.
A record setting 73 million people tuned in to watch 4 lads from Liverpool

The Beatles had touched down at New York’s Kennedy Airport two days prior. Only one of them—George Harrison—had been to America before.

John, Paul, George and Ringo kick off the show with three songs: “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You” (from The Music Man), and “She Loves You.”

They’re bursting with exuberance, with close-up captions to help viewers tell them apart. You can’t help noticing the camera loves Paul slightly more than the others—John is the one who gets his own microphone, but Paul gets most of the close-ups. The theater holds 700 people, but it sounds like a few million girls are packed in there, screaming and crying and pulling their hair.

But it’s also an America full of fan hysteria—when you watch the Beatles on TV, you can’t take your eyes off the girls losing their minds.

When the ratings came in, they revealed that 72.7% of the television audience had witnessed the start of 60 years of Beatlemania, The Ed Sullivan Show reaching over 23 million homes that night and an estimated 73 million people. The group would make two more pre-recorded appearances as well?

Later in the show, the Beatles play two more songs, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Sullivan comes out to express his gratitude—but not to the boys in the band, or the audience. He thanks the New York Police Department, for their crowd control all week.

If you are a fan of The Beatles you might enjoy these videos by Morgan Rees:

The Beatles “Beginning to the End” factoids: