On this day in 1969, John Lennon (1940–1980) and Yoko Ono (1933–) were married in Gibraltar. As chronicled in the Beatles’ song The Ballad of John and Yoko, the newlyweds turned their honeymoon into a media-covered “bed-in” for world peace at the Amsterdam Hilton.

Unfairly blamed for the Beatles breakup in 1970, Ono became one of contemporary culture’s most misunderstood women. Born to a wealthy banking family in Tokyo, Japan, Yoko (“ocean child”) once said, “Subservience was never in my dictionary. Never.”

Ono studied philosophy in Japan and moved to New York City in 1953. She became an avant-garde artist, experimenting with music, performance, and conceptual art.

She performed an infamous solo recital at Carnegie Hall, toured briefly with John Cage, and created provocative experimental films and performances. By the time she met Lennon in 1966, Ono was already an established and ambitious artist with a bold vision.

She said, “Music is in all our souls. We are actually surviving because of the rhythm and vibration of music.”

Ono was beside Lennon the night he was shot in 1980. Reflecting on his death, she said, “I saw that nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.”

Today, Yoko still lives at the Dakota apartments overlooking Central Park’s Strawberry Fields. She has carefully protected Lennon’s legacy and continues to celebrate his influence. “His spiritual influence is everywhere, through his music and his memory,” she said.

Coming full circle as an artist, Ono in recent years has been recognized as a feminist trailblazer rather than the caricature critics once imposed.

“The only thing we can do is our best,” Ono said. “And I’m trying to do my best as a person. That’s all.”