Have you ever wondered what it would be like if someone were to update/finish Billy Joel’s iconic 1980’s hit We Didn’t Start the Fire?

1949: Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,

1950: Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,

1951: Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye,

1952: Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye,

1953: Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,

1954: Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock,

1955: Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,

1956: Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez,

1957: Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai,

1958: Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide,

1959: Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,

1960: U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo,

1961: Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,

1962: Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,

1963: Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex,
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say,

1964: Mary Poppins, Gulf of Tonkin, War on Poverty,
Mustang, Free Speech, Great Train Robbery,

1965: Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Maple Leaf, Vatican,
Watts Riot, SDS began,

1966: Blackbird, Black Panther, Peace at Tashkent,
NATO, Star Trek, The right to remain silent,

1967: Super Bowl, British steel, and a summer full of love,
North Sea, Muhammad Ali, and a symbolic black glove,

1968: Prague Spring, Chicago Seven, The Tet Offensive,
Assassinations, Massacres, One Life to Live,

1969: Moonshot, Woodstock, silent majority,
Wal-Mart, Arafat, draft lottery,

1970: Earth Day, EPA, eighteen to vote,
Kent State, postal strike, Heyerdahl and his boat,

1971: OPEC, Amtrak, school busings ok,
Pentagon Papers, Bretton Woods, e-mail by Ray,

1972: Godfather, ERA, Ballistic Missile Treaty,
Bobby Fischer, Price is Right, Roberto Clemente,

1973: Roe v. Wade, Paris Peace, Triple Crown,
Sears Tower, War Powers, Dollars going down,

1974: Stephen King, Solzhenitsyn, Watergate burglary bungle,
Smiling Buddha, Willy Brandt, Rumble in the Jungle,

1975: Pine Ridge, Prefontaine, Pele’s New York bound,
UK EC, Saigon VC, The Weather Underground,

1976: Concorde, Kampuchea, death penalty’s ok,
Son of Sam, Face on Mars, its the United States’ birthday,

1977: small pox, Tenerife, Gang of Four,
Centenary Test, Star Wars, Led Zeppelin is no more,

1978: Neutron bomb, Cleveland bonds, Camp David Accord,
Allan Bakke, Ted Bundy, Chinese reform,

1979: Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline,
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,

1980: Superfund, Sakharov, Polish Solidarity,
ABSCAM, Miracle on Ice, Thatcher’s the Iron Lady,

1981: Royal Wedding, test tube baby, air controllers on strike,
Reagan shot, Anwar Sadat, Columbia’s first flight,

1982: Mexico, embargo, missing paper boy,
cyanide risk, compact disc, Falkland convoy,

1983: Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,

1984: Baby Bell, Macintosh, Michael Jackson burned,
Sarajevo, coal miners strike, the Olympics get spurned,

1985: Achille Lauro, Buckyball, Super Mario,
Coke Classic, Titanic, We are the World,

1986: Chernobyl, Superbowl shuffle, Challenger explodes,
Khian Sea, Halley, Lady Liberty,

1987: Channel Tunnel, intifada, baby in a well,
Tammy Faye, Black Monday, I feel swell,

1988: Hulk Hogan, Perestroika, Iran-Contra Affair,
Night game, RUssian shame, Barbarians at the Gate,

1989: CFC, Sky TV, Satanic Verses,
Stockton’s pall, Berlin Wall, chinese corpses,

1990: Marion Barry, Nelson Mandela, Germany’s reunified,
Hubble’s launched, Thatcher’s gone, Iraq invades Kuwait,

1991: Magic Johnson, Desert Storm, Rodney King gets beat,
world wide web, Dr Seuss, Lithuanians in the street,

1992: Bill Clinton, Bulls repeat, Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
Ross Perot, L.A. Riot, EuroDisney folly,

1993: Gen X, Hubble’s flawed, Mandela and de Klerk,
EU, NAFTA, Waco Texas burns,

1994: white Ford Bronco, baseball strike, assault weapons ban,
Aldrich Ames, Genocide, Nancy Kerrigan,

1995: glove don’t fit, Newt Gingrich, Windows 95,
Jordan’s back, homegrown attack, free trade’s alive,

1996: Sheep cloned, Kasparov pwned, Royal divorce,
Tupac shot, Unabomber caught, Jobs on a white horse,

1997: Harry Potter, Princess Di, Deng Xiaoping,
Mother Teresa, Tiger Woods, Favre gets a ring,

1998: AOL, Drudge Report, California Smoking Ban,
blue dress, finanical mess, Google search began,

1999: Gretzky, monopoly, Man U’s got game,
Y2K, Dow 10K, Jar Jar Binks is lame,

2000: Napster, NASDAQ, Windows ME,
Elian, Bush v. Gore, Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?,

2001: ipod, Enron, 9/11 attack,
Earnhardt, bin Laden, Patriot Act,

2002: Beltway Sniper, Bali bomber, election in Brazil,
devaluation, deflation, Afganistan invasion,

2003: shock and awe, shuttle flaw, SARS scare,
Tony Blair, Jonny Depp, Genome map,

2004: Gay Marriage, Gitmo, George W. Bush,
Constitution, Revolution, warming of the earth,

2005: Kyoto, Schiavo, rioting in France,
Hurricane, Deep Throat’s name, give democracy a chance,

2006: YouTube, Sago Mine, Cheney hunts his friend,
bird flu, immigrants, 3,000 soldiers dead,

2007: Dreamliner, Don Imus, Kasparov in jail,
Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, OJ Simpson’s back again,

2008: Barack Obama, Hockey Momma, Bill Clinton’s spouse,
gas prices, financial crisis, I can see Russia from my house;