Introduced to an audience of screaming teenagers on national television, the Beatles make their American TV debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. The band, whose TV premiere takes place during their first trip to the States, play five songs to rapturous applause. (Ironically, Sullivan’s other musical act of the evening is a young actor named Davy Jones, later of the Monkees.) An audience estimated to be 73 million viewers strong watches this seismic moment in American pop culture, ushering in years of wanna-be sound-alikes both foreign and domestic referred to as the British Invasion.
