'America was ours!'

The Beatles were selling millions of records in Britain. The Sunday Times newspaper compared Lennon and McCartney with Beethoven. But many of the group's fans had other things on their minds. A lot of young fans dreamt about their favorite Beatle:

Paul was the sweet, romantic one.

George was the quiet one.

Ringo was the happy, funny one.

John was the intelligent one. He often made jokes, but they weren't always kind. Follow the leader

In the very early days, John was the band's leader. When the band became successful, his position wasn't so clear. Both he and Paul wrote songs and sang for the band. In front of the cameras, Paul often spoke for the band, but John usually had the last word. To George, John was always the strongest person in the group. Years after John's death, he said, 'I think he is still the leader now, probably.' At the beginning of 1964, the Beatles were the most popular band in Britain. They were famous in Europe, but they were still a little nervous about the United States. Many English stars looked for success across the Atlantic before the Beatles, but failed.

The Beatles' first singles in the US didn't do very well. But interest grew, and finally 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' reached number one. The band flew there in February 1964. They all knew how important this trip was. In Ringo's words, America was all that they dreamt about years earlier. The trip was a big success. When the band played on TV's The Ed Sullivan Show, they were watched by an American TV audience of almost seventy-three million people. It was one of the most important shows in the history of popular music. The Beatles played in Washington and Miami, and went home happy. As Ringo said, 'America was ours now.' The band were world stars.

The Beatles returned to the United States later in 1964, as part of a big world tour. This trip was as successful as the last one. Ringo remembers that 'it was just so much fun. As usual, nobody could hear the music at the concerts because of the screams of the fans. At this time it wasn't a big problem for the band, but it became more and more important later. George's memory of this tour was less happy than Ringo's. President Kennedy was killed only a year before, and George didn't want anyone to shoot one of the Beatles.