Marking 40 years since the Fab Four famously strode across the famous north London street, hundreds of Beatles fans swarmed Abbey Road on Saturday, singing beloved Beatles songs and blocking up traffic for blocks. The famous photo depicting John, Paul, George and Ringo crossing the street graced the cover of the band's final album recorded together, "Abbey Road."

The image remains one of rock's most iconic and most recognized album covers. It is endlessly imitated and parodied, and remains the subject of speculation and study decades later. While the shoot itself only took minutes to produce the photo, fans have studied the image so carefully, looking for signs and symbolism in the imagery. Some fans eventually came to the conclusion that Paul McCartney had secretly died (he appears barefoot and out of step with the others). McCartney himself has joked about the conspiracy theory, and in 1993 he even poked fun at it by calling his concert album "Paul is Live."

The Beatles decided to shoot the image in August 1969 while they were recording together for the last time. Photographer Iain Macmillan stood on a stepladder while police held up traffic and the band walked back and forth across the street.

The scene is so easy for fans to recreate the scene that Abbey Road attracts tourists everyday. The street has effectively been turned into a shrine to the Beatles. The city has had to take extra precautions, putting the Abbey Road street sign out of reach due to multiple thefts over the years, and repainting the walls every three months to be rid of fans' graffiti.