On 8 December 1980, John Lennon was shot five times by 25-year-old Mark David Chapman outside The Dakota, the apartment building in New York City where John and Yoko Ono lived. Chapman had been stalking Lennon for days outside the building and asked for an autograph as Lennon walked through the courtyard.

Returning from the Record Plant studios where they had been working, John and Yoko had been dropped by their white limousine on the pavement outside the building rather than driving through the gates and into the building’s secure courtyard.

Five shots rang out and four dum-dum bullets, specially adapted to cause maximum physical damage, slammed into Lennon’s back, side, and shoulder.

Lennon was pronounced dead from a massive loss of blood at 11:30pm.