The group (and the day) that changed the world

10:00am Sunday 16th November 2008

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IT’S 45 years since American television audiences got their first glimpse of The Beatles – and they saw them in Bournemouth.

All three leading US television networks attended the Fab Four’s two shows at the Winter Gardens on November 16, 1963 with CBS’ Alexander Kendrick filing the first report – broadcast on November 22 – from “Beatleland, formerly known as Britain, where an epidemic called Beatlemania has seized the teenage population.”

Kendrick’s brief item on CBS Morning News that day was due to have expanded into a full feature for CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, but tragic world events superceded it.

November 22, 1963 was the day President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas and CBS broadcast nothing but reports on those dreadful events for the next 55 hours.

See Tuesday’s Daily Echo (Nov 18) for more on this and other echoes from the past.