On this day in New York · February 7, 1964
The Beatles Land at Kennedy Airport
Four mop-topped Liverpudlians stepped off Pan Am Flight 101 into a screaming crowd of 4,000, and New York hasn't stopped talking about it since.
The facts
- Date
- February 7, 1964
- Flight
- Pan Am Flight 101, from London Heathrow
- Crowd at JFK
- About 4,000 fans and 200 journalists
- Ed Sullivan Show audience
- Roughly 73 million viewers on February 9, 1964
On February 7, 1964, Pan Am Flight 101 touched down at the newly renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport carrying the Beatles on their first trip to the United States. About 4,000 fans and 200 journalists were waiting on the tarmac and in the terminal, a crowd so large the airport had never handled anything like it, and a few people in the crush were hurt. After a chaotic press conference, the band was driven into Manhattan in separate limousines. Two days later, on February 9, the Beatles played their first live American television set on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by an estimated 73 million people, close to two-fifths of the country.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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We were aware that Ed Sullivan was the big one because we got a telegram from Elvis and the Colonel. And I've heard that while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest for ten minutes.
George Harrison, recalling the Ed Sullivan Show broadcast of February 9, 1964
Source: TheBeatles.com -
On arrival at New York's newly renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, they were greeted by a crowd of 4,000 Beatles fans and 200 journalists.
Wikipedia, "The Beatles in the United States"
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
It's the moment the British Invasion actually landed on New York soil, and it set the template every band arrival, every airport mob, every Ed Sullivan-sized TV moment since has been measured against.
Sources
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