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| John Lennon, 1969 |
Today's Highlight in History
1980 – John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.
John Winston Lennon, was an English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as a founder/ member of the rock band the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music.
John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, during a German air raid in World War II.
As a teenager Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze. At age 15, Lennon formed the Quarrymen band in September 1956, named after his school, Quarry Bank High School. By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which he asked McCartney to join the band.
The fledgling band usually rehearsed in McCartneys' front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time, Lennon who was 18-year-old, wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", a UK top 10 hit for nearly five years later.George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist at 14 years old. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960.
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| Lennon (right) performing "All You Need Is Love" with The Beatles in 1967 to 400 million viewers of Our World |
They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963
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| Lennon (right) performing with the Beatles in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania |
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, formed a songwriting partnership that is one of the most celebrated of the 20th century. The partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. He later said, "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that—to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant".
In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".
Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969, just after the group completed recording Abbey Road. The news of the break-up was kept secret until McCartney announced his departure in April 1970, a month before the band released Let It Be, recorded just before Abbey Road.
When he left the group, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Working Class Hero". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean. He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album Double Fantasy.
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| John Lennon (left) autographing a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman (right), 6 hours before the killing. |
He was murdered three weeks after its release.At around 10:50 pm on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in the Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 pm. Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.
Lennon married Cynthia Powell in August 1962. The couple had one son together, Julian, who was named after Lennon's mother. Cynthia was forced to keep a very low profile during Beatlemania. She and Lennon divorced in 1968. He remarried the following year, on March 20, 1969, to Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, whom he had met at the Indica Gallery in November 1966.
As of 2012, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
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| The entrance to the Dakota buildin where Lennon was shot |
Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to killing John Lennon on December 8, 1980. Chapman shot Lennon outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman remained at the scene reading J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye until the police arrived and arrested him.
Chapman was imprisoned in 1981 and has been denied parole eight times amidst campaigns against his release. Chapman's eighth parole application was denied in August 2014. After the hearing, Chapman said, "I am sorry for being such an idiot and choosing the wrong way for glory." "I have peace now in Jesus," he continued. "He has forgiven me and loves me. He has helped me in my life like you wouldn't believe." Chapman's next scheduled parole hearing will be in August 2016.
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World Events
1813 – Premier of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.
1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)
1949 – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is established to provide aid to Palestinian refugees who left their homes during the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
1962 – Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) go on strike for 114 days.
1963 – Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707, is struck by lightning and crashes near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 people on board
1974 – A plebiscite results in the abolition of monarchy in Greece.
1980 – John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.
1988 – A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.
1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1991 – The Romanian Constitution is adopted in a referendum.
1998 – Eighty-one people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
2004 – The Cusco Declaration is signed in Cusco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.
2007 – Three unidentified gunmen storm an office of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in Balochistan. Three PPP supporters are killed.
2009 – Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kill 127 and injure 448.
2010 – With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.
1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.
1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (See December 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)
1949 – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is established to provide aid to Palestinian refugees who left their homes during the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
1962 – Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) go on strike for 114 days.
1963 – Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707, is struck by lightning and crashes near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 people on board
1974 – A plebiscite results in the abolition of monarchy in Greece.
1980 – John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.
1988 – A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.
1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1991 – The Romanian Constitution is adopted in a referendum.
1998 – Eighty-one people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
2004 – The Cusco Declaration is signed in Cusco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.
2007 – Three unidentified gunmen storm an office of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in Balochistan. Three PPP supporters are killed.
2009 – Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kill 127 and injure 448.
2010 – With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.
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