Preview: We Didn't Start the Fire Name______Billy Joel Album: Storm Front

Directions: With a partner, highlight all of the historical figures and events that you have heard of and then BRIEFLY expand on what you know about it on the opposite side of the page. If you think you have heard of something but can’t expand on it, then underline it. This is just a preview activity so you will not be judged on what you do or do not know.

Lyrics: ______Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray ______South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television ______North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe ______Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom ______Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye ______Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye ______We didn't start the fire It was always burning ______Since the world's been turning ______We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it ______But we tried to fight it ______Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev ______Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc ______Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock ______Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland ______Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev ______Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez ______We didn't start the fire ______It was always burning Since the world's been turning ______We didn't start the fire ______No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it ______Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai ______Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball ______Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide ______Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia ______Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy ______Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo ______We didn't start the fire ______It was always burning ______Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire ______No we didn't light it ______But we tried to fight it ______Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion ______Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania ______Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex ______J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say ______We didn't start the fire It was always burning ______Since the world's been turning ______We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it ______But we tried to fight it ______Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again ______Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock ______Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan ______Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie ______Goetz ______Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore ______We didn't start the fire It was always burning ______Since the world's been turning ______We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it ______But we tried to fight it ______

Please answer the following questions: 1. How many people/events named in this song did you recognize? ______2. Of these people/events do you actually know something about already? ______3. What do you think is the overall meaning of this Billy Joel song? ______4. Why do you think I am using this song as an introduction to your Contemporary U.S. and World History class? ______