The Beatles were greeted by the deafening roar of thousands of screaming fans when they arrived in the United States for the very first time on this day in history, Feb. 7, 1964.
“When the Beatles arrived in America, it was like seeing a new color for the first time,” a fan said years later.
Pan Am Flight 101, a Boeing 707, touched down with John, Paul, George and Ringo — the Fab Four still known globally by their first names — at the recently renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City at 1:20 p.m. ET.
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America, reeling in the wake of the assassination of President John Kennedy just 11 weeks earlier, was instantly intoxicated by Beatlemania.
“The pilot [rang] ahead and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them,’” Paul McCartney said in “The Beatles Anthology.”
“We thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it.'”
The band would soon dominate global pop music and, in many ways, reshape Western culture for generations to come.
“We thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it.'” — Sir Paul McCartney
“Pandemonium broke out among the stamping, banner-waving fans as The Beatles — John, Paul, George and Ringo — stepped from the plane,” The Daily Mirror of London wrote on its front page the following day, under the lead headline that screamed, “Yeah! Yeah! U.S.A.!”
“I think the world has gone mad,” the story stated, quoting a New York City police officer who was working crowd control at the airport.
The Liverpool lads had become superstars in Britain only a year earlier. Their arrival in America brought Beatlemania to an entire new level. It would soon consume pop culture.
The Beatles would prove even bigger in the United States than they were in the United Kingdom.
“America was the best,” Ringo Starr said in “The Beatles Anthology.” “It was a dream, coming from Liverpool.”
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The Lovable Mop Tops appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” from Midtown Manhattan two nights later, a landmark moment in American cultural history.
“America was the best. It was a dream, coming from Liverpool.” — Ringo Starr
George Harrison was living in Los Angeles when he died in 2002.
McCartney and Starr continue to tour the United States.
Fans spontaneously serenaded McCartney with “Happy Birthday” last summer when he performed at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on the eve of his 80th.
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It appears a new generation of American children will grow up with an appreciation of the Beatles’ sound and their impact on our national heritage.
John Lennon’s “music made people happy,” Ethan Doyle, 12, of Philadelphia, told Fox News Digital in December outside the Dakota where the musician was murdered, accompanied by his mother, Monique, and brother Brodie, 9.
“This place radiates importance.”
At one point during McCartney’s MetLife show last summer, a couple and their three small children — perhaps none older than 8 or 9 — danced gleefully as McCartney performed “Love Me Do.”
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The young children responded instinctively to the Beatles’ sound — much the way their grandparents did in 1964.
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