Daily List

Today in History, February 7th

On February 7, 1964, the Beatles landed in New York and Beatlemania began. Plus the New Madrid quake, Maastricht and Dickens's birth.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Amelia-Earhart-and-George-Putnam — Amelia Earhart and George Putnam

Published February 7, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

February 7 is best known for the day in 1964 when the Beatles landed in New York for their first U.S. visit and set off Beatlemania. The date also saw the strongest of the New Madrid earthquakes in 1812 and the birth of Charles Dickens in 1812.

The big story: The Beatles Land in New York (1964)

Pan Am Flight 101 from London touched down at New York’s Kennedy Airport on February 7, 1964, carrying four young men from Liverpool. Roughly 3,000 screaming fans were waiting, and the scene came close to a riot. The timing was perfect. Six days earlier, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” had climbed to No. 1 on the U.S. charts, and the country was hungry for something new after a grim winter. At the airport press conference, reporters kept asking about the band’s hair, and the Beatles answered with jokes that won over the room. Two days later, on February 9, they played The Ed Sullivan Show. An estimated 73 million Americans tuned in, about 40 percent of the population. That broadcast is often treated as the start of the “British Invasion,” the wave of U.K. bands that reshaped American pop music for the rest of the decade.

More events on February 7

Year	What happened
1497	Followers of the friar Girolamo Savonarola held the largest “bonfire of the vanities” in Florence, burning books, art, jewelry, musical instruments and other luxuries.
1795	The 11th Amendment was ratified, barring federal courts from hearing certain lawsuits brought against a state by citizens of another state or of a foreign country.
1812	The last and strongest of the three main New Madrid earthquakes struck along the Reelfoot fault in Missouri and Tennessee and destroyed the town of New Madrid.
1904	The Great Baltimore Fire broke out in a dry goods store downtown. It burned for more than a day and leveled about 140 acres of the business district.
1962	President John F. Kennedy’s ban on nearly all imports from Cuba took effect, four days after he signed the proclamation, creating the core of the U.S. embargo.
1974	Grenada became independent from the United Kingdom, with Eric Gairy as its first prime minister.
1984	Astronaut Bruce McCandless II made the first untethered spacewalk, flying a jet-powered backpack about 320 feet away from the space shuttle Challenger.
1986	Haitian President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled to France on a U.S. Air Force plane, ending nearly three decades of rule by his family.
1992	European leaders signed the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union. It took effect on November 1, 1993.
1999	King Hussein of Jordan died after more than four decades on the throne, and his son Abdullah succeeded him.
2009	The Black Saturday bushfires swept across Victoria, Australia, killing 173 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes.
2016	The Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24–10 in Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, California.

Born on February 7

1812: Charles Dickens, English novelist behind Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations.
1867: Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books about pioneer life.
1885: Sinclair Lewis, novelist and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1962: Garth Brooks, country singer-songwriter born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who became one of the biggest stars of 1990s country music.