John Lennon (1969)

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short and won the 2009 Emmy for ‘New Approaches’ (making it the first film to win an Emmy on behalf of the internet).

On December 8, 1980, a young man named Mark David Chapman asked John Lennon for his autograph in New York. Hours later, he fired four hollow-point bullets into Lennon’s back — killing him almost instantly.

John Lennon’s death shocked the world. On December 8, 1980, the former Beatle was fatally shot outside of his Manhattan apartment building, The Dakota. In minutes, one of the most iconic rock stars was gone forever.