Fresh off from their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles travelled down the road to Washington D.C. to play at the Washington Coliseum. It was the wrong venue to hold a group whose name alone sent young girls into hysterics. Designed for sports events, its capacity was set at 7,000 people; yet somehow close to 20,000 managed to pack in for the hour or so that the Beatles were on stage.

On this day, February 11, in 1964, the Beatles played their first concert in the United States. Though only on stage for an hour, they gave a riveting, energizing performance, powering through twelve songs with time in between to move themselves around so fans on all sides of the arena could see.

Right after the concert, the Fab Four attended a party at the British embassy. While the U.S. President was in attendance, the British Prime Minister was not — reportedly because he feared the group would upstage him. The next day, in a meeting between President Lyndon B. Johnson and PM Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Johnson joked “I like your advance guard.  But don’t you think they need haircuts?”