December 8, 2004 — Dimebag Darrell is shot and killed

Darrell Lance Abbott – better known to fans as “Dimebag Darrell” – was born on August 20, 1966. He was not yet thirty years old when he was shot dead onstage at the Alarosa in Columbus, Ohio on December 8, 2004. At the time, he was playing with Damageplan, although he was best known for his work with Pantera (who had recently broken up).

The shooter was Nathan Gale. He shot Dimebag six times, killing him instantly. He then fired another nine shots, killing four other people and wounding seven more. Gale was shot dead by police at the scene.

Dimebag was buried in a Kiss Kasket donated by Gene Simmons, and buried with him was Eddie Van Halen’s guitar Bumblebee, also donated.

December 8, 1980 — John Lennon is shot and killed

Mark David Chapman is, by any standard, an idiot. On this day in 1980, he shot John Lennon five times, in the back, while Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono looked on helplessly.

Whatever his actual motive for shooting John Lennon – and Chapman has contradicted himself on several occasions regarding it – the fact remains that he achieved only two things: depriving the world of a truly great musical talent, and giving the rest of the world one more reason to loathe American culture.

The fact that he has not been shanked in the yard at Attica State Prison only serves to underscore the massive injustice of Lennon’s death.

December 8, 1864 — The Clifton Suspension Bridge is opened to the public

The Clifton Suspension Bridge was built more than a century after it had first been proposed, from a design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel that was completed by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw after Brunel’s death in 1859. The bridge is particularly notable in that, unusually for a suspension bridge, the towers at each end are not symmetrical with each other.

The bridge operated as a toll bridge upon its opening and it remains one today, still in operation more than 150 years after its construction. It was also the site of the first modern bungee jump, in 1979