BEATLES FOOTAGE BY AP AND BRITISH MOVIETONE

Liverpool moments in biggest ever YouTube upload of historic news footage by Associated Press and British Movietone

The Beatles attending the Liverpool premiere of A Hard Days’ Night and a mob of Fab Four fans calling for Harold Wilson to save the Cavern will be part of the largest upload of historical news footage ever uploaded to YouTube.

Associated Press and British Movietone are together bringing more than 1 million minutes of digitised film footage to the channel, offering a unique perspective on the most significant moments of modern history.

Showcasing the moments, people and events that shape the world, it includes many iconic moments in Liverpool’s history.

They include:

The Beatles attending Liverpool premiere of A Hard Day’s Night in 1964 - see the fainting fans and watch John, Paul, George and Ringo on the balcony of Liverpool Town Hall

Liverpool dock strike in 1911

The opening of the Mersey Tunnel by George V in 1934

Heavy snow fall that has turned Liverpool white in 1936

Beatles fans protesting and presenting a petition to Prime Minister Harold Wilson, asking him to help keep the Cavern Club open in 1966

The wartime evacuation of children overseas in 1940

Liverpool’s heaviest blitz in 1941

Liverpool seeing the Royal film performance in 1952

Queen Elizabeth II’s inauguration of the Langton-Canada dock in 1962

The consecration of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in 1967

The YouTube channels will comprise a collection of more than 550,000 video stories, dating from 1895 to the present day. The videos will start to be available from the beginning of next week.

Viewers can see video from the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, exclusive footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Marilyn Monroe captured on film in London in the 1950s and Twiggy modeling the fashions of the 1960s.

Content on the channels will also include surprising videos from different regions across the UK, fashion through the ages, sporting coups, entertainment, extreme weather, technological innovations, the evolution of eating and drinking habits, political milestones and historical moments. They will be continually refreshed with up-to-date contemporary footage.

Alwyn Lindsey, AP’s director of international archive, said: “The AP archive footage, combined with the British Movietone collection, creates an incredible visual journey of the people and events that have shaped our history.

“At AP we are always astonished at the sheer breadth of footage that we have access to, and the upload to YouTube means that, for the first time, the public can enjoy some of the oldest and most remarkable moments in history.”

 

The Associated Press is a global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.

British Movietone’s newsreel archive spans the period 1895 – 1986. Shot on 35mm film, it contains many of the world’s enduring images and was the first newsreel to include sound and to use colour film.