In Pictures: When John Lennon Died 35 Years Ago

Thirty-five years ago on this day, John Lennon was shot and killed. Take a look at how things unfolded that week.

File photo of John Lennon at The Hit Factory, a recording studio in New York City taken on August 22, 1980. (Photo: AP)

The death of John Lennon still reverberates as a defining moment for a generation and for the music world. A man who helped define rock and roll, a leader of the peace movement, an icon of the Baby Boom generation, his sudden death at the hands of Mark David Chapman took place on this day 35 years ago.

The crowd outside the Dakota apartment building, a day after Lennon was shot. He was shot while returning home on the evening of December 8. (Photo: AP)  

Chief of Detectives James Sullivan said Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, were walking into the enclosed courtyard of the Dakota at about 10:50 pm when five shots rang out. Lennon staggered up a few steps into the building and collapsed, he said.

Yoko Ono and record producer David Geffen leave Roosevelt Hospital in New York after the death of her husband. (Photo: AP)

Police Officer Anthony Palma, who was one of the first officers to arrive, said Lennon’s wife became hysterical when doctors told her he was dead.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” he quoted her as crying.

A woman weeps during a ten-minute silent vigil on December 14, 1980, held for John Lennon in front of Trinity Church in Boston. (Photo AP)

In an interview earlier that year – his first major interview in five years – Lennon said he wanted to leave The Beatles as early as 1966, but did not make the move until four years later because he “just didn’t have the guts.”

On December 14, 1980, Lennon’s fans jammed the street just outside the Dakota apartment house in New York. This was after leaving a memorial service held at the bandshell in Central Park, across the street. (Photo: AP)

The seed for The Beatles band dates to 1955 when Lennon met McCartney at a church in Liverpool, England. They started performing as a duo called The Quarrymen and were joined three years later by Harrison.

Starr did not come into the band until 1962 – a year before The Beatles hit the top of the charts in Britain with Please Please Me.

The American flag flying at half-mast on 13 December 1980. This is atop the Dakota apartment building in New York as a tribute to John Lennon. (Photo: AP)

“Beatlemania” did not cross the ocean to the United States until 1964.