Special Sub-Topic: I Was Assassinated Click Here To Play: I Was Assassinated

Imagine, in 1980 I was just getting back into recording when my life was wiped out by four shots fired by a "fan" outside my apartment building in New York. Who am I?

John Lennon & Lennon & John Winston Lennon. John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940 and raised by his aunt and uncle. Soon after the breakup of The Beatles in 1970, John and his new wife, Yoko Ono, moved to America. On December 8th 1980 Mark David Chapman shot and killed him outside the Dakota Building in New York.

In 1940 I met my untimely demise with the aid of an ice-pick wielded by one Ramon Mercader. A Russian revolutionary and intellectual, I wrote many books, was imprisoned on several occasions and ultimately exiled to Mexico.

Leon Trotsky. Lev Davidovich Bronstein was born in Ukraine, Russia in 1879, to Jewish parents. An intellectual, charismatic man, Trotsky (name adopted from a false passport used to escape prison and exile in Siberia)was to become one of the great Marxists of his time. The last twelve years of his life were spent in exile. Moving from country to country he eventually settled in Mexico where, probably at Stalin's instigation, he was assassinated.

There I was, on a lovely spring day in 1865, at the Ford's Theater in Washington enjoying a performance of "Our American Cousin". The third act had just begun when a man came up behind me and shot me in the head. Who am I?

Abraham Lincoln & Lincoln & Abe Lincoln. Born in Kentucky in 1809, Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. A few days before his death he apparently dreamed that he had been assassinated. He was so disturbed by this dream that he related it to his wife and several close friends.

An Indian social and political leader, I was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu nationalist. Who am I?

Mohandas Gandhi. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Gujarat, India in 1869. Named Mahatma (Great Soul), he studied law in London and spent many years in South Afica. Both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were also assassinated (in 1984 and 1991 respectively). Indira's son, Sanjay, died in a flying accident.

As Roman Emperor I had guards to safeguard my person, unfortunately it was my wife Agrippina, who killed me - with poisoned mushrooms. Who am I?

Claudius. Born in 10BC, a nephew of Tiberius, Claudius married his fourth wife, his cousin Agrippina the Younger, in AD 49, when she had just been accused of poisoning her second husband! Her first husband fathered her son, Nero, who she persuaded Claudius to adopt as his heir.

An illiterate Russian peasant I may have been, but I was able to use my healing powers to help the haemophiliac son of the Tzar and Tzarina. I did not die easily. Who am I?

Gregory Rasputin & Rasputin. Grigory Yefimovich Novykh was born circa 1872 in Siberia. His given name "Rasputin", Russian for "debauched one", reflected his lifestyle. Having exercised a decade of influence over the imperial family, a group of noblemen, dismayed at the hold Rasputin seemed to exercise over Tzarina Alexandra conspired to assassinate him. Several attempts were made on his life, but in 1916 at the home of Prince Feliks Yusupof he was poisoned, shot and finally drowned.

The last Viceroy of India, I was on holiday in 1979, sailing my boat off the coast of County Sligo, Ireland, when an IRA bomb blew it apart. Who am I?

Lord Louis Mountbatten. Son of Prince Louis of Battenburg and Princess Victoria (grand-daughter of Queen Victoria), Louis was born at Windsor in 1900. The uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh he became particularly close to Charles, Prince of Wales who was devastated by his tragic death.

A Mexican revolutionary, I evaded capture by President Woodrow Wilson's men, only to be assassinated on my own ranch in 1923. Who am I?

Pancho Villa. Doroteo Arango, known as Francisco (or Pancho) Villa, was born in Mexico in 1878. Orphaned young, he spent his adolescence hiding out as a fugitive after a revenge killing following an assault on his sister. A talented soldier and guerilla leader, Villa retired in 1920 to his ranch in Parral, Mexico where he was killed three years later.

I said "I have a dream", and that dream was that some day all men would be equal. In 1968 my life was ended by a sniper's bullet. Who am I?

Martin Luther King Jr. Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929 Martin Luther King Jnr followed his father into the Church. Leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, he won the Nobel peace prize in 1964. In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers. Standing on the balcony of his motel he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray, a white escaped convict, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his crime.

In 1881, I had only been in office for four months as President of the United States, when a disgruntled office seeker shot me at a railroad station in Washington. Who am I?

James Garfield. The shooting of the 20th President so soon after taking office provoked some serious constitutional questions. After being shot Garfield lay ill for 80 days and, because of ambiguities in the Constitution, it could not be decided how much power should be endowed upon the vice-president. The President died before he could be consulted on the matter.