New Game: Alternative "We Didn't Start the Fire"

The game is to write alternative lyrics for the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.

You don't have to write the entire song of course, just one stanza between the chorus would do. Your historical references can be anytime after 1900, including post 1989 where the OTL song was released.

An explaination of your lyrics would be useful. I have a feeling this will be addictive.

For those unfamiliar with the song:

http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire
 
I took a stab at the '40s with the sole intention of changing every name and still getting it to rhyme:

Thomas Dewey, Betty Hutton, Kuomintang, Dick Button, The King and I, Drew Pearson, Phil Rizzuto.

--

[1]As predicted by the Chicago Tribune, Thomas E. Dewey beats Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election.
[2]The 1948 movie, "Romance on the High Seas", stars Betty Hutton, as originally envisioned, and goes on to be a huge hit as a result. Doris Day never auditions and remains in relative obscurity.
[3]The Kuomintang defeat the communists and win the Chinese civil war.
[4]Dick Button, US figure skater, wins his first Olympic medal, (this happened OTL, I just needed something that rhymed with "Hutton").
[5]Rogers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" is a huge flop on Broadway, but "The King and I", rushed out in the wake of this disappointing news, is a sterling return to form.
[6]Journalist Drew Pearson takes the limelight from Walter Winchell who was murdered by gangsters in 1932.
[7]Phil Rizzuto performs well at the 1941 World Series, leading the Yankees to victory. Joe DiMaggio grows up in Italy, his family never having emigrated to the US.
 
A while ago I started on one trying to do the Victorian era. Here's what I have so far.


Davy Crockett, Revolver,
Alamo, Trovador,
Charles Darwin, Prez van Buren, San Jacinto

Chicago, Charles Dickens,
Telegraph, Alex Pushkin,
Queen Victoria, Nicaragua, Verdi's Oberto

Photography, Yungay,
British Aden, O.K.,
Amistad, Beglium, War over Opium

Faraday, Waitangi, England's married off her queen,
Livingstone, Napoleon, William Henry Goodbye

[chorus]

Penny Black, Canada,
O'Higgins, Anesthesia,
Oregon Trail, Christmas Carol, James K. Polk

Raven, Famine, Texas annexed, Walden,
Liberal rising, California gold


And some other lines I want to include:

Belgians in the Congo

USS Maine, blown away, what else do I have to say

Now we're in a World War, I can't take it anymore
 
I took a stab at the '40s with the sole intention of changing every name and still getting it to rhyme:

Thomas Dewey, Betty Hutton, Kuomintang, Dick Button, The King and I, Drew Pearson, Phil Rizzuto.

--

[1]As predicted by the Chicago Tribune, Thomas E. Dewey beats Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election.
[2]The 1948 movie, "Romance on the High Seas", stars Betty Hutton, as originally envisioned, and goes on to be a huge hit as a result. Doris Day never auditions and remains in relative obscurity.
[3]The Kuomintang defeat the communists and win the Chinese civil war.
[4]Dick Button, US figure skater, wins his first Olympic medal, (this happened OTL, I just needed something that rhymed with "Hutton").
[5]Rogers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" is a huge flop on Broadway, but "The King and I", rushed out in the wake of this disappointing news, is a sterling return to form.
[6]Journalist Drew Pearson takes the limelight from Walter Winchell who was murdered by gangsters in 1932.
[7]Phil Rizzuto performs well at the 1941 World Series, leading the Yankees to victory. Joe DiMaggio grows up in Italy, his family never having emigrated to the US.
Trying to continue from this... "1950"

Jimmy Stewart, Solzhenitsyn, Preston Tucker, Colorvision, Serbia, Slovenia, Sixty-five and oh.

[8]After performing Harvey on stage, Stewart opts not to pursue the film version, instead entering politics. The Republican first won his Senate seat in 1950.
[9]Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, noted refugee who fled the USSR in 1945 becoming an outspoken anti-Communist figure, historian, and conservative political pundit.
[10]"Futuristic" Tucker automobiles took the market by storm throughout the 1950s.
[11]Color broadcasts begin in the United States starting with CBS on January 12, 1950.
[12][13]Two of the three states (the third being Croatia) created in the wake of the Moscow led "Yugoslavian Intervention" that forcibly removed Josip Broz Tito and divided Yugoslavia for "easier oversight."
[14]Legendary Heavyweight champion Joe Louis retired in 1950, with an undefeated 65-0 (51KO) record that stands as the greatest to this day.
 
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