They only started calling themselves the “World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band” after many others did. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards formed their band after a chance meeting at a London train station brought them together for the first time since their days together at the Dartford Maypole County Primary School. A quick scan of the records Jagger was carrying was enough to convince Richards of their common tastes, and the possibility for a great musical collaboration. It was as if they were destined to become a global phenomenon.

On this day, June 2, in 1964 The Rolling Stones played their first gig in the U.S., the country that would make them famous – though they were not famous yet, headlining a high school gig in Lynn, Massachusetts.

On that same day, the Rolling Stones made their American TV debut on WABC’s experimental Les Crane Show in New York. As the Stones were even less known in the United States than in their native Britain, they did not perform, and the show itself was broadcast only to the New York area.