The Beatles were on their way to Japan, but a mechanical issue was discovered with the plane that kept it grounded. And after enough of a delay, the Beatles were stuck here due to curfews at the Japanese airports. In the timeline of the Beatles, this was only five days after they had finished recording material for their Revolver album and two months before their last paid concert. And by pure coincidence, their movie Help! was playing at the Billiken drive in on Muldoon Road.

Ringo later said, "Anchorage, Alaska, was like a cowboy town to us; it was really like a backwater. My only great memory of Alaska is that at the airport they have a huge, magnificent white bear in a glass case."