An English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame with The Beatles and later married Yoko Ono. Lennon was murdered in New York City in 1980. I have depicted him in his Abbey Road suit from 1969 (which recently sold for $46,000). This is character #3 of my eight-day Music Week. Yes, I work on this 8-bit character project eight days a week.
An African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. As a spokesman for the Nation of Islam he taught black supremacy. After he left the Nation of Islam in 1964, he became a Sunni Muslim, but was assassinated a few months later while giving a speech. Here is a relevant song: “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine.
Norma Jeane was born on this day in 1926. She became a cultural icon and American sex symbol. Yankees star Joe DiMaggio was one of her three husbands. She allegedly had affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy. She died of a barbiturate overdose in 1962, but conspiracy theories about the nature of her death abound.