February 7th

On this day - February 7th 1964 - The Beatles landed in New York 

The popular band from Liverpool did not have the best start in the United States. Their record company was acting trough a subsidiary Capitol Records. Capitol Records hindered releases of Beatles singes by declining to issue their music. EMI changed to the local label Vee-Jay that ended up releasing some songs but not all. The contract with Vee-Jay was canceled when it came out that they did not report royalties on their sales. The Beatles started to gain traction after their manager Brian Epstein arranged a 40,000 USD marketing campaign in late 1963. On December 26 1963 their song "I want to Hold your Hand" was released and by mid January it had sold a million copies. When the Beatles left the UK there were an estimated 4000 fans gathered to see them off. When they landed in New York, on this date, there were 3000 people greeting them. They played the Ed Sullivan Show and a record 73 million viewers in 23 million households watched (34%). At the time it was the largest audience for an American tv show. In spite of this the day after the reviews were negative in the US. After their first concert however Beatlemania erupted and the show got great reviews. The Beatles visited the Ed Sullivan Show a second time before leaving for the UK on the 22nd of February. Their visit is called the "British Invasion", the rest is as we say history. 

The Beatles at John F. Kennedy airport