NEW YORK - John Lennon was killed 29 years ago Tuesday in New York City when Mark David Chapman approached him and his wife Yoko One in front of their building, the Dakota, and shot Lennon.
Lennon was just returning to his home around 11 p.m from the Record Plant Studio where he was recording new music. He was pronounced dead at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center after being shot five times by his assailant.
Lennon, born on Oct. 9, 1940, was the most outspoken member of The Beatles, and he went on to address issues of world peace and conflict in his music and art in his later life. He and his wife, artist Yoko Ono, are famously remembered in the iconic Rolling Stone magazine cover of the couple in bed with a nude Lennon cradling Ono with his arms and legs.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame writes that Lennon "did more than anyone else to shake [rock and roll] up, move it forward and instill it with a conscience."
Some of his most widely know songs of his post-Beatles career include, "Imagine," "Mind Games," "Instant Karma," and "Give Peace a Chance." The songs typify his desire to raise awareness for social change.
By FRANK CARNEVALE
