Issued on 26 December, with the band’s previously scheduled debut there just weeks away, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sold a million copies, becoming a number-one hit in the US by mid-January.
Capitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format, compiling distinct US albums from the band’s recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles.
American chart success began after disc jockey Carroll James of AM radio station WWDC , in Washington, DC, obtained a copy of the British single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in mid-December 1963 and began playing it on-air.
On 4 November, they played in front of The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret during the Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre .
In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth.
On their return to the UK on 31 October, several hundred screaming fans greeted them in heavy rain at Heathrow Airport . Around 50 to 100 journalists and photographers, as well as representatives from the BBC , also joined the airport reception, the first of more than 100 such events.
In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962.
In September 1963, Metcalfe and Noble left to form their own band.
In September 1963, Waters and Mason moved into a flat at 39 Stanhope Gardens, Highgate in London, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the nearby Hornsey College of Art and the Regent Street Polytechnic.
Issued in August, their fourth single, ” She Loves You “, achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks. It became their first single to sell a million copies and remained the biggest-selling record…
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