Sweetwater

On February 7, 1964, Pan Am flight 101 from London Heathrow landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport. Four young Liverpudlians stepped off the plane and were greeted by more than 3,000 screaming teenagers. For the next two days Paul McCartney, 21, John Lennon, 23, George Harrison, 20, and Ringo Starr, 23 were sequestered for their own safety in the Plaza Hotel. February 9 they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show sporting mod outfits and pudding-bowl haircuts. Roughly two thirds of America’s TV sets were tuned in as the Fab Four performed All My Loving, Till There Was You (from The Music Man), She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, and I Want to Hold Your Hand. You can catch clips of their four Ed Sullivan shows on YouTube, but you can’t hear much above the noise of The Beatles' fans.