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Beatlemania is the fanaticism surrounding the English rock band the Beatles from 1963 to the present. The group's popularity grew in the United Kingdom in late 1963, propelled by the singles " Please Please Me ", " From Me to You " and " She Loves You ".
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- HISTORY Vault: America the Story of Us
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Take a look back at how the Fab Four conquered American pop culture.
By late 1963, The Beatles—guitarists John Lennon and George Harrison; bassist Paul McCartney; and drummer Ringo Starr—were already a household name in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. More than 15 million viewers had tuned in to their performance on “Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium,” and the band was regularly playing sold out shows to legions of swooning teenage fans.
But while they had staked their claim on the top of the singles charts in England, The Beatles still struggled for recognition across the pond. Their first two U.S. singles—the jaunty “Please Please Me” and the catchy “From Me to You”—had flopped, and Capitol Records, the American arm of their label, EMI, appeared uninterested in promoting a foreign band.
The lads from Liverpool would finally catch a break in October 1963. While passing through London’s Heathrow airport, American television host Ed Sullivan noticed hundreds of excited teens waiting to see The Beatles return from a tour of Sweden. Sullivan had never heard of the shaggy-haired quartet, but after learning about their fanatical following, he felt they had the potential to be as big as Elvis Presley. A few weeks later, Sullivan booked the group to appear on his popular television program.
Armed with a gig on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” The Beatles finally gained traction in the United States. Capitol Records agreed to back their upcoming record, and CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite reported on the Beatlemania phenomenon in England.
In early December, a 15-year-old Maryland girl named Marsha Albert saw the group on the news and wrote her local radio station asking, “Why can’t we have music like that here in America?” When a DJ tracked down a copy of their still-unreleased single “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the song became a massive hit. Capitol Records had to scramble to get the single onto record store shelves, and it went on to sell 1 million copies in a matter of days.
America The Story of Us is an epic 12-hour television event that tells the extraordinary story of how America was invented.
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Learn how The Beatles went from being unknown in the U.S. to becoming a cultural phenomenon after their appearance on \\"The Ed Sullivan Show\\" in February 1964. See photos, videos and facts about the Fab Four's first visit to America and their impact on pop culture.
Learn how the Beatles became an international pop sensation and sparked a frenzy of fan culture in the 1960s. Explore the origins, features, and legacy of Beatlemania, the term for the ecstatic, female-led fandom that swept the world.
Learn how the Beatles went from a local band in Liverpool to a global phenomenon in just one year, with their songs, style, and charisma. Discover the key factors and events that led to the birth of Beatlemania in Britain and Europe.
Beatlemania was the name given to the popular frenzy surrounding the Beatles after the band’s first appearances on British television in 1963. When the Beatles appeared on American television in 1964, Beatlemania also erupted in the United States. Mass media created the conditions for the collective frenzy that was Beatlemania.
Jun 10, 2023 · By Jill Lepore. June 10, 2023. Paul McCartney taking a photo of himself in the mirror. Photographs by Paul McCartney / Courtesy Liveright Publishing. On November 4, 1963, the Beatles played at...
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In the Beatles. …new word for the phenomenon: Beatlemania. In early 1964, after equally tumultuous appearances on American television, the same phenomenon erupted in the United States and provoked a so-called British Invasion of Beatles imitators from the United Kingdom.
