A booking on Ed Sullivans popular CBS network show in February 1964 watched by an estimated seventy-three million people and the fact that the band had two 1 albums in the UK the previous year, finally convinced Capitol Records to sign The Beatles to a US record deal. By April, 1964, the bands songs occupied the top five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That summer, they toured New Zealand and Australia, where their arrival in Adelaide was greeted by a crowd estimated at more than 300,000. The first Beatles movie, A Hard Days Night was released in 1964. All told, the band released seven albums in the US and UK in 1964, all but three of them charting at 1. Two others peaked at 2, and the third, the soundtrack from a UK TV documentary The Beatles Story reached 7. Beatlemania was responsible for the concept of the stadium concert. More than fifty-five thousand fans,which was the most ever to have attended a single concert at the time, packed the New York Mets Shea Stadium in August 1965. Two months later, the Beatles became Members of the Order of the British Empire, one of the highest honors bestowed in the UK, usually to military and government officials. The Beatles second movie, Help came out in 1965, and the soundtrack was one of the four albums the band released that year

The Ed Sullivan Shows & Shea Stadium

Ed Sullivan

The Beatles and Ed Sullivan pose for a picture after the show

The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan

The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium