![[OC] With Brigitte Bardot's passing 3 people in 'We didn't Start the Fire' remain alive](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/jktoo5s4kx9g1-1075x1536.png "[OC] With Brigitte Bardot’s passing 3 people in ‘We didn’t Start the Fire’ remain alive")
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
5 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!