Iconic moment: The death of John Lennon
On 8th December 1980 John Lennon was assassinated outside his home in New York City.
Shockwaves reverberated around the world as disbelief and reality set in.
The life of a man who questioned the establishment and challenged the status quo, a man who had influenced the youth of the Western world was prematurely over.
The day after Lennon's murder Yoko Ono stated "there is no funeral for John. John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him".
The impact of his death on the British people and the collective mourning it created was compared by some to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and for our generation, the death of Diana in 1997 and the public display of emotion draws many parallels.
Ray Coleman, who wrote Lennon: The Definitive Biography believes that "for one awful moment, a world that didn't care was brought together, and in its grief remembered how to care".
Born in 1986, I was six years too late to comprehend the impact of Lennon's death.
Yet my parents' generation had experienced the Beatles mania.
My mother's best friend recalls that she was unable to go to work that day; "they played Johns songs all day long on the radio - by listening I became reconnected with all the different parts of my life".
Another friend said he too was unable to continue with work and when he left the building, businessmen were walking around and listening to radios, completely dumbstruck.
He told me "he was our finest and the leader of my generation....Lennon defined the times".
On 14 December 1980, millions mourned the death of Lennon and responded to the request of his wife Yoko Ono who asked for ten minutes of silence.
30,000 people gathered in Liverpool and over 100,000 converged on Central Park in New York.
Initially Lennon achieved fame through The Beatles, whose debut was in Liverpool in January 1961.
Yet Lennon was bigger than The Beatles.
In the 1970s the band split, Lennon moved to New York and subsequently launched a solo career.
Writing and recording songs such as Give Peace a Chance and Imagine brought Lennon into his own.
Imagine became an anthem of peace where he stated "you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one".
His politics was clear and powerful, commanding the attention of the American and British youth.
In December 1971 he performed at the 'Free John Sinclair' concert in Michigan.
Sinclair was an anti-war activist and poet serving ten years in state prison for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover policeman.
Lennon performed his song John Sinclair, calling the authorities to "let him be, set him free, let him be like you and me".
20,000 people attended the rally, and three days after the concert the state of Michigan released Sinclair from prison.
