John Lennon: Rebel Beatle  Lennon dared people to ‘Imagine’ a
better world.  Flower bouquets are placed before a large
portrait of John Lennon at the John Lennon Museum in Saitama
city, suburban Tokyo, in 2006.  “The death of a man who sang and
played the guitar overshadows the news,” said CBS news anchor
Walter Cronkite, on Dec. 9, 1980, reporting on the shooting of
John Lennon. People who held vigils for Lennon five days later
remembered him as more than just a member of the Beatles. Lennon
used his music and fame after leaving the group to encourage a
generation’s dreams of peace, love and social justice. Each of
the Beatles did great things after the Fab Four went their
separate ways but John Lennon was always the most political, the
most rebellious -- the only one the Nixon administration tried
to silence.  John’s mother, Julia Lennon, gave him up to be
raised by his aunt; his father had no interest in raising him.
If that sparked his subversive nature, his aversion to authority
spiked at age 17, when Ju