![[OC] With Brigitte Bardot's passing 3 people in 'We didn't Start the Fire' remain alive](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/jktoo5s4kx9g1-1920x1024.png)
Line starts when someone is born. Ends when they die. and a dot for when they did the thing they were mentioned for in the song.
The Billy Joel's songs video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
Python code up at https://gist.github.com/cavedave/780d37ab288a117e29defab9b5a3f848
Data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_references_in_We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire and https://everyday-learning.org/we-didnt-start-the-fire-historical-references/
This is repost from 7 months ago but the news today makes it relevant again https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1kq7v3w/oc_who_didnt_start_the_fire_and_when_didnt_they/?sort=old
Posted by cavedave
19 comments
Very nice. You could possibly add Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr if you count “British Beatlemania” as a reference to the Beatles as people.
TIL Chubby Checker is still alive
I thought he died a few years ago but I guess I was confusing him with Chuck Berry.
He self references, so it’s 4.
THIS is how I find out about Brigitte Bardot’s passing‽
There’s a good pub quiz question!
Though I’m still annoyed by the time my local asked for a list of people mentioned in the song, (over 20 got points) and counted Ole Miss and the Beatles.
Beatles are dubious (if you count them, then you should count Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr as the King and I…), but Ole Miss is a university!
Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson are missing: “Liston beats Patterson”
They are both dead, however.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
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Well… now I have to go listen to the song
“We tried to fight it” but all this cocaine just kept going up our noses! Darndest thing! 🥴
Who knew that the song was a “death pool?”
From Sally Ride’s birth on May 26, 1951, until George Santayana’s death at 88 the following September 26 (1952), all of the people in the chart above were alive simultaneously.
Not surprisingly, the person referred to in “Heavy Metal Suicide” did not make it.
Children of thalidomide isn’t a specific person but I’m sure there are many still alive.
She didn’t “pass” she died.
There is a new one now I think from weird al or someone!
Only when they’ve all died will the Downeaster Alexa will be released from hock.
Is there a reason the direct labels of “Born” and “Died” are on Menachem Begin, two-thirds of the way down the chart? My first thought was that it was because he was first alphabetically and so had been given the label when the chart was sorted differently. But “Bardot” of course precedes “Begin”; did Begin get the label because Bardot’s line went all the way to the right and would have necessitated adding padding on the right?
Regardless, I think it would help the (superb!) chart’s readability to put this label on Truman.
Someone has been putting in work! But is there one for Fall Out Boy’s version?
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