This Weekend Will Mark the 50th Anniversary of the First-Ever Live Global Satellite TV Broadcast. And It Came from the Beatles.

When we turn on the TV or the computer, we can access video from any part of the planet instantly. But fifty years ago, such instant communication was still the stuff of science fiction. But then along came The Beatles.

On June 25, 1967, a little more than three weeks after the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band and a bunch of friends (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Keith Moon, Graham Nash and a few others) gathered in Studio 2 at Abbey Road to do something no one had every done before: conduct a worldwide live satellite broadcast. The occasion? Their new single, “All You Need is Love.”

The BBC explains how this magic happened. And here’s the broadcast itself, which began at 8:54 pm London time, which started 40 seconds earlier than scheduled. Some 700 million people tuned in, a record for the time. Some saw it in colour while the UK was stuck with black and white because the BBC had yet to upgrade their gear.

The Beatles – All You Need is Love Our World Satellite Broadcast Live 1967 from Philou 2 le retour on Vimeo.