John Lennon, songwriting genius and founding member of The Beatles — a person who gifted the world with lovely music that also rouses the human spirit lengthy after his demise — was murdered in New York Metropolis on today in historical past, Dec. 8, 1980. 

He was 40 years outdated. 

“An unspeakable tragedy,” legendary sports activities host Howard Cosell blurted in shock to the nation close to midnight, interrupting the dramatic remaining seconds of a Monday Night time Soccer broadcast. 

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“John Lennon, outdoors of his condominium constructing on the West Facet of New York, probably the most well-known maybe of all of the Beatles, shot twice within the again. Rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Lifeless on arrival.”

Cosell’s dramatic phrases spoken on nationwide tv, a long time earlier than the web unfold information immediately, have been the primary that many Individuals heard of the celebrated musician’s demise. The world realized quickly after preliminary experiences that Lennon was truly shot 4 instances.

John Lennon on a rooftop in New York Metropolis, August 29, 1974.
(Photograph courtesy of Bob Gruen   )

Lennon ignited pop-culture mania with The Beatles within the Sixties. 

He went on to a vastly profitable profession as solo artist and peace activist within the Nineteen Seventies. 

He was murdered outdoors his residence, The Dakota, on Manhattan’s Higher West Facet at 10:50 p.m. and pronounced lifeless on the hospital 25 minutes later. 

“His music made individuals comfortable.” — 12-year-old fan Ethan Doyle

Gunman Mark David Chapman, a deranged fan who obtained an autograph from the musician hours earlier, pleaded responsible to Lennon’s homicide in 1981.  

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An estimated 100,000 Beatles followers flooded The Dakota and Central Park within the hours after the tragedy for a tear-filled vigil that shut down auto visitors throughout a number of blocks of Manhattan. 

The John Lennon vigil has by no means ended.

December 1980: Followers of John Lennon maintain a vigil after he was shot lifeless by a fan on December eighth at his house in New York Metropolis.  
(Photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures)

The Dakota’s gracious vaulted entrance, the spot the place Lennon was killed, is a every day international pilgrimage website at the moment. 

So, too, is a nook of Central Park throughout the road from the residence, dubbed Strawberry Fields in Lennon’s honor after a preferred Beatles tune. 

Each websites elicit emotion and reflection for guests from everywhere in the world, a lot of them born lengthy after Lennon was killed.

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“His music made individuals comfortable,” Ethan Doyle, 12, of Philadelphia, instructed Fox Information Digital on Wednesday outdoors the stately residence, accompanied by his mom, Monique, and brother Brodie, 9. 

“This place radiates significance.”

The doorway to The Dakota in Manhattan, the place John Lennon was murdered in 1980. It is a pilgrimage website to today. “This place radiates significance,” Ethan Doyle, proper, 12, of Philadelphia, instructed Fox Information Digital this week. He is pictured with brother Brodie and mother Monique Doyle.
(Kerry J. Byrne/FoxNews Digital)

Strawberry Fields is highlighted by a black-and-white tile mosaic on a Central Park pathway with the phrase “Think about,” a reference to one in every of Lennon’s best-known solo tunes. 

The sounds of Lennon and the opposite Beatles — Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — in addition to the quiet murmur of a parade of followers fill Strawberry Fields all through the day, daily. 

It is a testomony to the ability of Lennon’s music that it nonetheless attracts and resonates with the souls of strangers 42 years after the artist final walked the earth.

John Lennon performed his prized 1958 Rickenbacker 325 when The Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Present” on Sunday, February 9, 1964, from CBS’s Studio 50 in New York Metropolis. 
(Photograph by CBS Photograph Archive/Getty Pictures)

“I play right here 4 to 5 instances every week and also you see individuals silently crying to themselves,” New York Metropolis musician Jules Avalon instructed Fox Information Digital on Wednesday, between lovely acoustic variations of Beatles’ hits “All My Loving,” “Blackbird” and “Strawberry Fields Without end.”

“You see individuals silently crying to themselves.” — NYC musician Jules Avalon

The 72nd Road subway station, immediately beneath The Dakota, boasts sky-blue tiles in Lennon’s honor, additionally with the phrase “Think about” in cloud white on one of many partitions.

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Lennon, a local of Liverpool, England, positioned no. 8 on a 2002 BBC reader ballot record of the 100 Biggest Britons of all time, between Queen Elizabeth I, who dominated England for 45 years within the sixteenth century, and Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, the naval hero who saved the island nation on the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. 

New York Metropolis musician Jules Avalon (proper, on bench) performs acoustic variations of Beatles’ and John Lennon’s songs in Strawberry Fields, Central Park, on Dec. 7, 2022. The Dakota, the luxurious residence the place Lennon was murdered on Dec. 8, 1980, might be seen within the background.
(Kerry J. Byrne/Fox Information Digital)

He and the Beatles burst onto the British music scene in 1963 and have become a world sensation the next 12 months. 

The Beatles made their dramatic American debut in 1964, simply 16 years earlier than Lennon’s homicide, at what’s now the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway. 

“Abbey Highway,” launched by The Beatles in 1969, was the twelfth best-selling album of the 12 months in 2022.

It is situated a mere 18 blocks south of The Dakota. 

The Beatles broke up in 1970, after writing, recording and releasing scores of hit songs in lower than a decade which might be nonetheless acknowledged pop-culture requirements at the moment. 

Yoko Ono and John Lennon are proven collectively in 1970.
(AP)

It was a profound interval of inventive manufacturing in a dramatically quick time period — and barely if ever matched in music historical past.

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In 2022, due to the magic of contemporary expertise, Lennon carried out along with his former songwriting accomplice Paul McCartney.

McCartney, in his tour of America this 12 months, sang a duet with Lennon that includes vocals from his late bandmate remoted from The Beatles’ well-known 1969 rooftop efficiency in London. 

The 72nd Road station of the New York Metropolis subway system is embellished with John Lennon memorial tiles. The station is situated beneath The Dakota, the place Lennon lived and was murdered on Dec. 8, 1980. 
(Kerry J. Byrne/Fox Information Digital)

One unbelievable testomony to the continued enchantment of The Beatles comes from Billboard. 

“Abbey Highway,” a basic album launched by The Beatles in 1969, was the twelfth best-selling album of the 12 months — right here in 2022. 

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“Like most of us he was typically egocentric and unsightly,” influential British leisure journal New Musical Specific wrote in its obituary of Lennon in December 1980. 

“However he was by no means miserly with himself or his soul … He gave. He shared. And now [that] he’s gone we, too, appear diminished.”