The Beatles on the Box (Pt. 2)

The Beatles took America by storm when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. They appeared a total of three times in as many weeks on the Sunday evening show, the first time being February 9, 1964. Here, from that show watched by 73.7 million viewers, are the Beatles performing "I Want To Hold Your Hand":



On February 9, 1964, a newspaper headline read, "GI Joe character created."

"All You Need Is Love" was first performed by The Beatles on "Our World," the first ever live global television link. The BBC had commissioned the Beatles to write the song for the U.K.'s contribution to the program, which was broadcast via satellite to 26 countries and watched by 350 million people on Sunday, June 25, 1967:



"Muhammad Ali sentenced to 5 years," ran a headline on June 25, 1967, the day of the broadcast. The boxer, born Cassius Clay, had been found guilty of draft evasion, having refused to submit to induction by the Selective Service because of his Muslim religious beliefs. Ali was released from custody pending appeal, and eventually his conviction was overturned.

By mid-June 1966 the Beatles were no longer interested making live TV appearances. Their final live TV gig was on "Top of the Pops" in the U.K. on June 16, to mime (or lip-sync) to "Paperback Writer" and "Rain." That footage apparently no longer exists, having been deleted by the BBC! But the Beatles had also filmed multiple TV promos of both songs on May 19-20 at Twickenham Studios. One of those promos for "Rain" appeared in the U.S. (with a specially filmed intro by the Beatles) on the Ed Sullivan show of June 5, 1966:



On Thursday, June 16, 1966, "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" debuted on U.S. TV.

The first Beatles appearance on U.S. TV was not on Ed Sullivan, but on the Jack Paar program of January 3, 1964. This was not a live appearance but a film of them doing "She Loves You." It was taken from a 30-minute British TV documentary, "The Mersey Sound," produced by the BBC during August of that year and aired on October 9:



On October 9, 1963, a headline read, "French air force gets 1st nuclear weapons."

(Many of the this-day-in-history headlines in this post come from dMarie Time Capsule.)