John Lennon’s meeting with Yoko Ono is the stuff of legend. Lennon was accompanying his friend John Dunbar to the opening of Unfinished Paintings and Objects show at Dunbar’s art gallery in London. Standing out among the artists and bohemians there was a 33 year-old conceptual artist named Yoko Ono. She gave Lennon a card reading “Breathe”, and then demanded 5 shillings for hammering an imaginary nail into a wall. For an imaginary nail, Lennon is said to have replied, he would give an imaginary 5 shillings.

On this day, March 20, in 1969, the blossoming romance between the relatively unknown bohemian daughter of a high-class banker and the world-renowned working boy from Liverpool was consummated in a wedding ceremony in Gibraltar, on the Mediterranean sea.

Lennon and Ono had a profound impact on the Beatles. After his return from a “honeymoon” in Amsterdam, John and Paul sat down to write a song about the experience: “The Ballad Of John And Yoko.” During the honeymoon itself Yoko and John invited the world’s press corps to what they called a “bed-in for peace,” which (much to the disappointment of many who expected something similar to their famous Two Virgins album cover) consisted of hours-long discussions on the subject of peace.