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