U.S. President Barack Obama and stars from the stage and screen honored talk show host Oprah Winfrey, singer Paul McCartney and other artists on Sunday for lifetime achievements in music, theater, and television.

Country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, Broadway composer Jerry Herman, and dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones filled out the list of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, an annual celebration of the arts in Washington, D.C.

The gala ended with a group rendition of the Beatles song "Hey Jude." The Beatles' first U.S. visit, a few months after President John F. Kennedy's November 1963 assassination, is widely hailed as the start of the so-called "British invasion" that swept America's pop music scene, changing the face of rock 'n' roll and launching a 1960s cultural phenomenon.