3. John Lennon
Best known for being part of The Beatles who achieved massive worldwide success and numerous number ones. Lennon began his musical career in the mid-1950s with his band “The Quarrymen.” In 1957 Lennon met a then fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney. Lennon was so impressed by McCartney that he asked him to join his band. “The Beatles” were formed soon after and the rest they say is history. The became the biggest band of their generation and even cracked the notoriously difficult American musical market.
After the “Beatlemania” had ended Lennon embarked on a solo career. Lennon used his profile and celebrity to voice his opposition to the Vietnam War. He released a number of anti-war tracks such as “Give Peace a Chance” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”. He also famously staged two “Bed-Ins for Peace” with his wife Yoko Ono. His single “Imagine” envisioned a world free of war and racial division, where peace reigned and a “brotherhood of man” existed.
On December 8, 1980, Lennon was murdered outside his New York home by a mentally ill fan named Mark Chapman. In the last photo taken before Lennon was killed (above), you can see Lennon signing an autograph for Chapman, who would murder him just hours later.