On the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for the week ending April 4, 1964, The Beatles pulled off the unthinkable: they occupied all five of the top spots in the nation’s leading music publication.

The Top 5 looked like this:

1. “Can’t Buy Me Love”

2. “Twist and Shout”

3. “She Loves You”

4. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

5. “Please Please Me”

Never before in Billboard history had a single artist dominated the entire top five.

That wasn’t all. Beyond the five chart-toppers, the Fab Four were represented by seven other titles that same week:

• “I Saw Her Standing There” (No. 31)

• “From Me to You” (No. 41)

• “Do You Want to Know a Secret” (No. 46)

• “All My Loving” (No. 58)

• “You Can’t Do That” (No. 65)

• “Roll Over Beethoven” (No. 68)

• “Thank You Girl” (No. 79)

Several of these were actually B-sides, a testament to the sheer omnipresence of Beatlemania in early 1964. By the following week, two more singles—“There’s a Place” and “Love Me Do” (their 1962 UK debut)—joined the fray, bringing their total to 14 singles on the Hot 100 simultaneously.

At the dawn of 1964, there wasn’t a single Beatles song on the American charts, despite the group being a phenomenon in England for over a year. Everything changed on the January 18 Billboard chart, when “I Want to Hold Your Hand” debuted at No. 45. At the time, the No. 1 spot belonged to Bobby Vinton’s “There! I’ve Said It Again.”

By the next week, the Beatles had leaped to No. 3. Following their arrival in the U.S. and their legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, they became unstoppable.

When “Can’t Buy Me Love” hit No. 1 (jumping straight from No. 27), it replaced another Beatles record, “She Loves You,” which had held the top spot for two weeks. That single, in turn, had replaced “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which reigned for seven full weeks.

Interestingly, a look at that famous Top 5 reveals that only two songs—“Can’t Buy Me Love” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”—were released by Capitol Records, the label the Beatles were officially signed to. The others were scattered across various labels that had picked up their earlier material, including Tollie (“Twist and Shout”), Swan (“She Loves You”), and Vee Jay (“Please Please Me”).

The Beatles’ influence was so pervasive that even songs about them were charting: The 4 Preps were at No. 85 with “A Letter to the Beatles,” while The Carefrees sat at No. 42 with the aptly titled “We Love You Beatles.”

In 2019, Billboard ranked the ‘Top 125 Artists of All Time’ based on chart history, and—to no one’s surprise—The Beatles claimed the top spot. According to Billboard, ‘The Beatles have secured the most No. 1 hits in the 61-year history of the Hot 100, with a total of 20.