It was 50 years ago today, the Beatles taught the world through their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, here are 50 facts about the album.

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on June 1, 1967.
2. It was the third best-selling album of 1967.
3. The album’s concepts were inspired by the Counterculture movement that had risen at the time.
4. Paul McCartney came up with the album concept from salt and pepper packets on a plane.
5. The song “She’s Leaving Home” is based on a true story of a teen who ran away from her home as she was not satisfied with her materialistic life and wasn't happy. She later met the Beatles.
6. “A Day in the Life,” “Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds,” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” and “With A Little Help from My Friends” were banned from radio air play and certain album releases around the world due to beliefs that the songs had multiple drug references.
7. “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” were meant to be the leading singles for Sgt. Pepper but ended up not being on the original album. For the new 50^th anniversary edition, though, both songs are going to be included on the album.
8. While most critics and people believe that “Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds” is about LSD, John Lennon claims the song was inspired by a picture his son drew of his friend Lucy and Alice in Wonderland.
9. “Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds” is the most streamed and downloaded song off Sgt. Pepper.
10. The album’s artwork depicts some of the biggest names of history and contemporary times by using cardboard cutouts. These people were chosen by the band themselves. It’s rumored that Hitler is hidden on the album.
11. John Lennon requested that both Jesus and Hitler to be included on the album cover but both were rejected because they didn’t want people to be offended by Hitler and Lennon had just made a remark about how the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.
12. Elvis was originally supposed to be on the album cover, but the band believed he was too important to be on the cover.
13. The album cover features wax figures of how the band looked earlier on in their career. The wax figures were borrowed from Madame Tussaud’s. After the shoot, the figures disappeared for 20 years then were auctioned off for 81,500 pounds.
14. Sgt. Pepper was the first album ever to be released on the same day around the world.
15. The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios.
16. It is the first album that the Beatles released that featured a woman playing an instrument, Sheila Bromberg. You can hear her play the harp on “She’s Leaving Home.”
17. Cereal inspired John Lennon to write “Good Morning Good Morning.”
18. Ringo Starr was bored while making the album so he learned to play chess.
19. It spent 27 weeks at number one on the UK album charts.
20. It spent 15 weeks at number one in America
21. The album took five months to make.
22. The album has been considered the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stones Magazine and Billboard magazine.
23. There are sounds within songs on the album that can only be heard by dogs.
24. Before the album was released, the Beatles gave the album to their friend to listen. Their friend listened to the album at full volume with the windows opened at 6 AM. When the neighbors realized they were listening to unreleased Beatles’ music, they didn’t complain.
25. All the songs on the album were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney except for “Within You Without You” which was written by George Harrison.
26. Sgt. Pepper was the best-selling album of the 1960s.
27. Today the album has sold over 32 million copies worldwide.
28. The album was the first ever to have lyrics printed onto the packaging, which sparked the conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney was dead and replaced by a lookalike.
29. The album originally came with paper mustaches, a postcard, paper sergeant stripes and a few other cutouts to help make the experience more interactive between the Beatles and their listeners.
30. Producer George Martin would record odd sounds before the Fab Four came for their recording sessions. These noises included him dropping pennies, spoons forks, and whatever else he could find into a large pot of water.
31. There are 160 musicians playing on the album as Paul McCartney wanted a large orchestra to play on the album.
32. Some places in London were selling the album one week before its official release date of June 1.
33. In “A Day in the Life,” the piano is played by Paul McCartney. He also plays an organ in “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”
34. The tambourine in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is played by George Harrison.
35. The drumming in “A Day in The Life” is considered one of Ringo Starr’s most inventive parts on the album.
36. Sgt. Pepper is considered by many one of the most important and influential rock and roll albums ever recorded.
37. The first bad review of the album was written by Richard Goldstein.
38. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones believes Sgt. Pepper is not good and sounds nothing like the Beatles. He thought the album was too full of psychedelics and overhyped.
39. To record the album, it took 700 hours.
40. Three days after Sgt. Pepper was released, Jimi Hendrix opened his show in London with a cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Paul McCartney and George Harrison were there to see the performance.
41. “When I’m Sixty-Four” was originally meant to be the B-side to “Strawberry Fields,” but instead it was saved for the album and “Penny Lane” took its place.
42. A week before Sgt. Pepper came out, John Lennon would play “A Whiter Shade of Pale” non-stop on his record player.
43. It was George Martin’s idea to end the album with “A Day in the Life.”
44. George Harrison originally wrote “Only a Northern Song” for Sgt. Pepper, but it was replaced by the reprise of the title track and used on a later record.
45. George Martin plays a harpsichord in “Fixing a Hole.”
46. In 1970, US Vice-President Spiro Agnew said that in “With A Little Help from My Friends,” Ringo is not only singing about drugs but how they are his friends.
47. On the 8-track cassette that was released in the US, the title track reprise was extended by 15 seconds
48. On the album cover, the flowers are arranged to be a clock and the hands of it are the guitar strings.
49. On March 20, 1967, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were interviewed by Brian Matthews from BBC News and talked about everything except for the fact that they would never tour again.
50. At the 1968 awards, the album won six Grammys, including Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts, Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical and Best Contemporary Album, and Album of the Year. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the first rock and roll album to win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.