First, The Beatles came to iTunes. Now, it appears the other Holy Grail of Apple events will be taking place soon as The Wall Street Journal is confirming that Verizon Wireless will land the iPhone at an event on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple’s iconic iPhone will finally be arriving on Verizon Wireless, ending nearly five years of exclusivity with AT&T here in the United States. As reported earlier today, Verizon sent out invitations for a special media event to be held in New York City on Tuesday, January 11, perhaps mistakenly triggering a few clues as to what might be announced.

Verizon’s invitations were sent out to journalists and bloggers who might not ordinarily receive them, including MG Siegler at TechCrunch and Jim Dalrymple from the Apple-centic The Loop website. Most telling, iPhone 4 leaker Gizmodo was curiously left off the invitation list, despite claiming that they are “great friends” with the carrier -- but clearly not with Apple, who has blacklisted them from their own events since last year’s dramatic events over the fourth-generation handset.

“The move will for the first time let U.S. consumers choose the network that carries their iPhone and perhaps give them additional pricing options that could affect their monthly bills,” the Journal reported. “It will also upend the balance of power in the industry, ending Verizon rival AT&T Inc.'s exclusive hold on the device and leaving smaller players like Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA facing two well-capitalized competitors offering the world's most popular smartphone.”

Of course, everyone wonders if Apple will have a presence at the event -- it’s hard to imagine the iPhone finally arriving on Verizon without CEO Steve Jobs in attendance. All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski claims the Tuesday event “will be headlined by President and COO Lowell McAdam, but there will likely be a special guest as well” -- ‘nuff said.

Outside of the United States, the iPhone on more than one carrier would hardly be a newsworthy event -- most European customers have multiple carrier options for their device, which is even available to our friends up north in Canada from a trio of telcos. But for U.S. buyers who hate AT&T, it’s likely to be a revelation, as many potential customers have sat out the last few years with the iconic device tied to a single carrier.

The only question now is, when will the iPhone actually go on sale with Verizon? Earlier today, BGR pegged Thursday, February 3 as the on-sale date -- primarily because Apple has blacked out vacation requests from that day through Sunday, February 6, as well as Verizon’s penchant for new releases on Thursday.

We’ll all know for sure soon enough, but one thing’s for sure: We’ll probably be seeing a lot less “Droid Does” advertisements from Verizon in the near future.

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(Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal)