# We Didn't Start the Fire (podcast)

We Didn't Start the Fire is a modern history podcast that ran from January 2021 to June 2023. It is hosted by Katie Puckrik and Tom Fordyce and produced by Crowd Network.

## Premise

The podcasts takes topics from the pop song "We Didn't Start the Fire", released by Billy Joel in 1989. The song lists, via a series of fast-paced lyrics, brief references to 118 significant political, cultural, scientific, and sporting events between 1949, the year of Joel's birth, and 1989, in a mainly chronological order. The podcast looks at these in turn with expert guests, with topics including the politics of Harry S. Truman, space exploration, rock'n'roll and also including American, Korean and Cuba-Soviet Union relations at the height of The Cold War.

## Reception

Miranda Sawyer in The Guardian reviewed a "funny, informative discussion.. genuinely interesting and fun" and described it as her "new favourite show". Sawyer later noted that "Puckrik and Fordyce are funny, but also excellent interviewers and this show, which incorporates war, philosophy, celebrity and political machinations, is far better than you would ever imagine." Sawyer later put the podcast in her top 10 of the year for 2021.
Billy Joel himself heard the show and appears as a special guest on an episode first broadcast on October 25, 2021.

## Episodes

| Episode | Subject | Guest | Notes |
| 1 | Harry Truman | Eleanor Clift | |
| 2 | Doris Day | Tamar Jeffers-McDonald | |
| 3 | Red China | Yangwen Zheng | The Cultural Revolution was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong's death in 1976 |
| 4 | Johnnie Ray | Cathi Unsworth | |
| 5 | South Pacific | Cara Rodway | A musical composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein |
| 6 | Walter Winchell | Chris Shoop-Worrall | |
| 7 | Joe DiMaggio | Josh Chetwynd | |
| 8 | Joe McCarthy | Josh Hollands | |
| 9 | Richard Nixon | Rivers Gambrell | Part 1 of 3 episodes on Nixon |
| 10 | Studebaker | Greg Diffen | Automobile manufacturer |
| 11 | Television | Dick Fiddy | "The Babysitter" |
| 12 | North Korea | Sojin Lim | |
| 13 | South Korea | Mary Lynn Bracht | |
| 14 | Marilyn Monroe | Shar Daws | Tie-in with sister podcast Death of a Film Star |
| 15 | Rosenbergs | Josh Hollands | Convicted of being Soviet spies |
| 16 | H-bomb | Margaret MacMillan | The first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952 |
| 17 | Sugar Ray | Steve Bunce | Sugar Ray Robinson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1940 to 1965 |
| 18 | Panmunjom | Colin Thackery | The location where the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement that paused the Korean War was signed |
| 19 | Brando | Jonathan Ross | Influential actor and activist Marlon Brando |
| 20 | The King and I | Cara Rodway | 1951 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, made into film in 1956 |
| 21 | The Catcher in the Rye | Caroline O'Donaghue | Novel by J.D. Salinger |
| 22 | Eisenhower | Rivers Gambrell | |
| 23 | Vaccine | Gareth Millward | The first effective polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by Jonas Salk and a team at the University of Pittsburgh |
| 24 | England's got a new Queen | Margaret MacMillan | Elizabeth II was crowned in June 1953 |
| 25 | Marciano | Steve Bunce | Rocky Marciano was an American professional boxer who held the World Heavyweight title from 1952 to 1956 |
| 26 | Liberace | Jo Kendall | |
| 27 | Santayana Goodbye | Matthew Flamm | George Santayana was a philosopher, poet, essayist and novelist |
| 28 | Joseph Stalin | Alex Halberstadt | |
| 29 | Malenkov | Natalya Chernyshova | Georgy Malenkov briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union |
| 30 | Nasser | Tarek Osman | Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952, and was Egyptian president from 1954 to 1970 |
| 31 | Prokofiev | Alexander Karpeyev | Russian composer, pianist and conductor |
| 32 | Rockefeller | Angie Maxwell | |
| 33 | Campanella | Josh Chetwynd | Roy Campanella (1921–1993), a former catcher and a member of the baseball Hall of Fame |
| 34 | Communist Bloc | Eric Halsey | With focus on life in communist Bulgaria |
| 35 | Roy Cohn | Matt Tyrnauer | Involved in the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954 |
| 36 | Juan Perón | Natalia Milanesio | |
| 37 | Toscanini | Harvey Sachs | Italian composer Arturo Toscanini (1967–1957) |
| 38 | Dacron | Cara Rodway | Polyethylene terephthalate, a polyester referred to by the brand names Terylene in the UK, Lavsan in Russia and the former Soviet Union, and Dacron in the US. |
| 39 | Dien Bien Phu falls | Dan Snow | The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was fought between March 13 and May 7, 1954. |
| 40 | Billy Joel | Billy Joel | |
| 41 | "Rock Around the Clock" | Peter Doggett | 1954 hit record for Bill Haley & His Comets on Decca Records |
| 42 | Einstein | David Bodanis | Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) theoretical physicist |
| 43 | James Dean | Jake Lambert | |
| 44 | Brooklyn's got a winning team | Josh Chetwynd | 1955 Baseball World Series winners the Brooklyn Dodgers |
| 45 | Davy Crockett | Dr Amy Davis | |
| 46 | Peter Pan | Sarah Wolf | |
| 47 and 48 | Elvis Presley | Sally Hoedel | |
| 49 | Disneyland | Dr Amy Davis | |
| 50 | Bardot | Caroline O'Donaghue | Brigitte Bardot, French actress born 1934 |
| 51 | Budapest | Eric Halsey | Hungarian Revolution of 1956 |
| 52 | Alabama | Chris Wilson | Bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, protesting racial segregation |
| 53 | Khrushchev | Dr. Natalya Chernyshova | Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1953 to 1964 |
| 54 | Princess Grace | Kate Williams | Grace Kelly (1929–1982) American actress. |
| 55 | Peyton Place | Dr Cara Rodway | Novel and TV series |
| 56 | Trouble in the Suez | Tarek Osman | |
| 57 | Little Rock | Ryan Davis | |
| 58 | Pasternak | Ani Kokobobo | |
| 59 | Mickey Mantle | Josh Chetwynd | |
| 60 | Kerouac | | |
| 61 | Sputnik | Dan Kendall | |
| 62 | Zhou Enlai | Yangwen Zheng | |
| 63 | Belgians in the Congo | David Van Reybrouck and Reine Nkambiote | This episode was recorded live at the DS podcast festival in Ostend and was republished on August 29, 2022 to maintain the lyric's order in the song. |
| 64 | Bridge on the River Kwai | Helen O'Hara | |
| 65 | Lebanon | Chloé Kattar | |
| 66 | Charles de Gaulle | Dr Arthur Asseraf | |
| 67 | California baseball | Josh Chetwynd | |
| 68 | Starkweather Homicide | David Wilson | |
| 69 | Children of Thalidomide | Mikey Argy and C. Jean Grover | |
| 70 | Buddy Holly | Christopher Smith | |
| 71 | Ben-Hur | Helen O'Hara | |
| 72 | Space monkey | Dr Stuart Clark | |
| 73 | Mafia | Jeff Nadu | |
| 74 | Hula hoops | Amy Hill | |
| 75 | Castro | Dr Stephen Wilkinson | |
| 76 | Edsel is a no-go | Kit Chapman | |
| 77 | U-2 | Francis Gary Powers, Jr. | |
| 78 | Syngman Rhee | Owen Miller | |
| 79 | Payola | Richard Carlin | |
| 80 | Kennedy | Fredrik Logevall | |
| 81 | Chubby Checker | Jack McCarthy | |
| 82 | Psycho | Cara Rodway | |
| 83 | Hemingway | Dr Linda Patterson Miller | |
| 84 | Eichmann Part I | Steven Luckert | |
| 85 | Eichmann Part II | Ruth Barnett MBE | |
| 86 | Stranger in a Strange Land | Cara Rodway | |
| 87 | Dylan | Kerry Shale | |
| 88 | Berlin | Jane Peterson and Wolfgang Müller | Subjects of the short documentary Against the Wall |
| 89 | Bay of Pigs Invasion | Dr Stephen Wilkinson | |
| 90 | Lawrence of Arabia | Helen O'Hara | |
| 91 and 92 | British Beatlemania | Mark Lewisohn | Counted as the 88th episode |
| 93 | Ole Miss | Charles K. Ross | |
| 94 | John Glenn | Dr Kevin Fong | |
| 95 | Liston beats Patterson | Declan Taylor |
| 96 | Pope Paul | James Felak | |
| 97 | Malcolm X | Dr Peniel Joseph | |
| 98 | British politician sex | Kate Lister | |
| 99 | JFK blown away | none | |
| 100 | Birth control | Dr Catherine Roach | |
| 101 | Ho Chi Minh | none | |
| 102 | Richard Nixon back again | David Greenberg | |
| 103 | Moonshot | Kit Chapman | Counted as 100th episode |
| 104 | Woodstock | Bob Spitz | |
| 105 | Watergate | Kurt Andersen | |
| 106 | Punk rock | Michael Hann | |
| 107 | Begin | Henry Abramson | |
| 108 | Reagan | none | |
| 109 | Palestine | Dr Rashid Khalidi | |
| 110 | Terror on the airline | Brendan Koerner | |
| 111 | Ayatollahs in Iran | Ramita Navai | |
| 112 | Russians in Afghanistan | David Loyn | |
| 113 | Wheel of Fortune | Adam Nedeff | |
| 114 | Sally Ride | Sue Macy | |
| 115 | Heavy metal suicide | Michael Hann | |
| 116 | Foreign debt | Iwan Morgan | |
| 117 | Homeless vets | Stephen Eide | |
| 118 | AIDS | Deborah Gold | |
| 119 | Crack | Ruben Castaneda | |
| 120 | Bernie Goetz | none | |
| 121 | Hypodermics on the shore | Ruth Stringer | |
| 122 | China's under martial law | Jeff Wasserstrom | |
| 123 | Rock'n'roller Cola Wars | none | Series finale |