The song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a catalog of some of the most significant figures associated with the years 1940 through 1990. As far as all of the sports figures go, though, the westward movement of baseball may have been the most earth-shattering development. When the Dodgers and Giants moved from New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, they added an entirely new fan base to the game – at the time, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City A’s were the westernmost frontier of the game. I would be interested in knowing more about why those two teams moved west and how it changed the sport.
In politics, the case of the Rosenbergs – the most recent examples of people convicted of treason who ended up with the death penalty – would be of interest to me. Given the terrorist attacks in 2001, as well as the Timothy McVeigh bombings, this case would be interesting to me, to see if it’s a contrast with the more recent events on American soil, or if the political atmosphere around their case was different, because of the ongoing Cold War.
In entertainment, the suicide of Ernest Hemingway jumps out at me. I’ve read and enjoyed some of his short stories, including “Hills Like White Elephants,” but I’ve not read any of his novels yet, and I don’t know anything about his life, so that makes me curious.
In foreign affairs, the capture of Adolf Eichmann interests me. There seem to be some parallels between his discovery in Argentina and the capture of Osama bin Laden by the American military. I’m aware of the horrors of the Nazi regime, but I only know a bit about their experiments in Argentina, so I would like to learn more about those.
I would add President Lyndon Johnson to the song. Given his influence in the passage of the Civil Rights Act and his difficult choices between guns and butter during the Vietnam escalation, he was a significantly central figure to make the song.
Works Cited
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ob=av2e >
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-A4QFHZBA >
Joel, Billy. “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Storm Front. Lyrics, 1989.
