It Was 40 Years Ago Today...

Forty years ago today, the Beatles walked out of No. 3 Abbey Road and shot one of the most famous album covers of all time. Seemingly fraught with symbolism and precision, the image was actually a rush job, the BBC reports. Photographer Iain Macmillan “was given about 15 minutes,” says a friend. “He stood on a stepladder while a policeman held up traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times, and that was that.”

Those 15 minutes—and the resulting seven or eight photos—have made the little London side street a major tourist destination, not to mention a major pain in the derriere for local motorists. Fans are constantly dashing into the street for pictures, and officials routinely have to clean up graffiti. Today, hundreds of fans converged for a mass crossing to honor the shoot. “Someone’s going to get mown down one of these days,” says a local cabbie. “There’s no doubt about it.” (More Beatles stories.)