Want to play my history lockdown game? I made it up!

[FelicityWhiskers]

As you'll soon see!

So, years ago, Billy Joel had a hit with a song called 'We didn't start the fire' (for the younger folk among us) . It's filled with loads of historical references

Onto the quiz... at a first glance, how many of the events/people do you know without googling?

Here's the full lyrics - I mean, it'll pass a few mins of lockdown time yes?

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie 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
Marciano, 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, Dacron
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, Krushchev
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
Starkweather 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, Eichmann, "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
JFK – 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 shore, 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
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
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
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

For me? Only about 36

Which leads on to a further game! Learning them all

I've clearly lost the lockdown plot

Love this song. Know most of the references but as a kid, the line 'Sugar-Ray,
Panmunjom' baffled me.

I thought it was 'Sugar-Ray, Pam 'n John' and just assumed Pam & John were a significant couple of the 20th century

@TheLuckiest it's a great song, yes. I 'knew' a lot of the references but also, if I was asked anything about them didn't know an awful lot.

lol at Pam n John

I draw a complete blank on ten of them out of one hundred and twenty odd, but I do know the song pretty well anyway so that’s actually quite embarrassing that I’ve never bothered to google my gaps.

I now have googled and know what Panmunjom is and it's significance.

I lost count! Also, I know for example “Alabama” but not why it’s significant enough to include in the song. You need to make the rules more clear 😂

@LadyCatStark how about YOU make the rules? I feel I've done enough purely by thinking up the saddest game in the world.

I got to 70 before I stopped counting but a lot are things I know a bit about rather than something I could answer mastermind questions on!

112, most with the reference as well. Some I think are pretty US specific and fell below my radar. I seem to remember looking a lot up when I was younger or asking my folks.

I never paid attention to the words of this song, until now. Clever lyrics...

41! yeah some are just words I've heard of plus its very american!!

74 but for some of those 74 I’d be struggling to say much about them.

I love this game OP! I’m now on a mission to read up on as many as I can. Thank you

I reckon you get a point for knowing why Billy mentioned it in that point of the song. So I’m counting myself as knowing Alabama was the focus of the Civil Rights movement and that’s why he sings it at that point.

The Wikipedia page has a useful glossary talking you through what it all is.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire

About 80, but I'm getting old.
If it had referenced the last 20 years I would probably struggle on music and film references.

I don't know the song, but I recognised about 60 references, though I wouldn't be able to go into much detail about half of them. It's quite a fun brain teaser!

A follow up game could be how B movie references do you get in the opening song from Rocky Horror and how many of these movies have you seen?

Science Fiction Double Feature

Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear
Claude Rains was the invisible man
Then something went wrong for Faye Wray and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace it came from outer space
And this is how the message ran

Science fiction, double feature
Doctor X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Whoa oh oh oh oh
At the late night double feature picture show

I knew Leo G. Carroll was oover a barrel when
Tarantula took to the hills
And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott
Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills
Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes
And passing them used lots of skills
But when worlds collide said George Pal to his bride
I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills
Like a...

Science fiction, double feature
Doctor X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Whoa oh oh oh oh
At the late night double feature picture show
I wanna go oh oh oh

To the late night double feature picture show
By R.K.O oh oh
To the late night double feature picture show
In the back row oh oh oh
To the late night double feature picture show

It's used in school history lessons usually to research some events and then bring the song up to date with your own list of significant people or events.

96 - but know I missed sports ones (could guess what they were on about but didn't securely know them)

8 from the Rocky Horror intro