We Didn't Start the Fire: The History Podcast

We Didn't Start the Fire: The History Podcast

This brand new pop culture history podcast is nothing like anything you've heard before, and it's everything you need to understand the modern world. Katie Puckrik and Tom Fordyce, an American pop culture buff and a British music lover, have taken the smash-hit song by Billy Joel and turned it into a podcast. Billy lists 120 people, places, and things in 'We Didn't Start The Fire', and Katie and Tom will do an episode on every single one to create the most fascinating, random and original history of the post-war world. Over the next two and a half years, we're going to learn about politics, rock 'n' roll, sport, space, television, the Cold War, guided along the way by historians, eyewitnesses, and mega-fans. Billy started it. We're going to finish it. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @spreadthatfire, email us at fire@crowdnetwork.co.uk, and go to spreadthatfire.com to buy merch.

Episodes

What is Artificial Intelligence? | Introducing SystemShift

February 19, 2025 • 8 mins
Do you love We Didn't Start The Fire? Then you'll love this new podcast.   Perfect for question-askers and curious minds, welcome to SystemShift! Have a listen, and if you love it, hit one of the links below to see and hear more. Enjoy!   https://podfollow.com/1683278976 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENvqNLnE8js Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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BEATLEMANIA: First-Hand Experiences Presented by Something About The Beatles

October 14, 2024 • 93 mins
My guests are three very special ladies whom have all appeared on the show before, but this time, all three have memoirs out. Debbie Gendler was the first to appear on SATB (121: New York Stories) and her story as the 1st US fan (as far as I’m concerned) was initially laid out there. But now HER memoir has been published, I Saw Them Standing There: Adventures of an Original Fan During Beatlemania and Beyond.  Debbie joins returnin...
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ELVIS PRESLEY: His Last Moments Presented by History Shorts

September 30, 2024 • 12 mins
Please enjoy this bonus episode from the History Shorts podcast! Who has not heard at least one of Elvis Presley’s songs or knows exactly who they are looking at when they see his image? But did you know that the details surrounding the king of rock and roll’s untimely death are just as big of a part of pop culture as his life and music? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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CHARLES DE GAULLE: Interview with Pierre Azou on The French History Podcast

September 16, 2024 • 34 mins
Please enjoy this bonus episode from The French History Podcast! Is it better to be a hero or great? What is the difference? What makes someone a hero or great in France? Pierre talks all about that and how to get into the Panthéon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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JFK: The Kennedy Assassination

September 5, 2024 • 22 mins
Please enjoy this bonus episode which is the series premier of Countdown to Dallas, a new show from Evergreen Podcasts. In this episode we recap the basic events surrounding President Kennedy's assassination. We’ll discuss the formation of the famous Warren Commission, its findings — and highlight the one thing about its report that's often overlooked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Finale: Rock 'n' Roller Cola Wars

June 18, 2023 • 55 mins
The time has finally come... we’ve made it to the end of the song. This episode description is being written on a tearstained laptop as we speak. But we PROMISE we’re going out with a very fizzy bang. The cola wars was a tense battle between soda giants Coca Cola and Pepsi, as they tried to be crowned the hippest, Americanest, tastiest cola. But it’s also the epitoment of American capitalism and the power of brands. So who won the ...
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China's Under Martial Law

June 11, 2023 • 61 mins
It’s the penultimate episode, and Billy’s taken us back to China to talk about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the massacre that followed. In classic To this day, discussion of the events are strictly censored in China but in this episode we’ll explore it all. What happened to the protestors? Do we know who Tank Man was? What role did rock n roll play? And what’s the state of resistance and counter-culture in today’s China?...
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Hypodermics on the Shore

June 4, 2023 • 34 mins
When you head to the beach, you expect to find some leftover sandcastles and nasty sunburns - not a tide of used syringes. But that’s what was found on the coast of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in 1987-88. It destroyed tourism and caused drastic changes in local waste disposal. It’s a horrifying thing to think about, but what we didn’t realise is how often this still happens. Medical waste disposal is a huge issue for anti-...
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Bernie Goetz

May 28, 2023 • 41 mins
Ordinary guy turned vigilante icon, Bernie Goetz shook a crime-riddled New York City in 1984, after he shot 4 black teenagers on the subway. It created a rift within public opinion, and forced difficult conversations about race, self-defence, and gun rights. But when does self-defence go too far? How do we know Goetz truly felt threatened by teenagers he suspected would mug him? And was he properly punished? This week, we also expl...
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Crack

May 21, 2023 • 50 mins
Ruben Castaneda is a born storyteller and he's got an extraordinary story to tell. Ruben was The Washington Post's crime reporter in the early 90s when crack addiction was spreading across America, destroying livelihoods and ravaging communities. But what nobody knew is that at the same time as reporting on the crisis, Ruben was addicted to crack himself. WARNING: this episode contains explicit descriptions of drug use and addictio...
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AIDS

May 14, 2023 • 40 mins
In the 1980s, the world was gripped by a virus that was killing people in their thousands; savaging communities and creating a climate of fear, blame and ignorance. That virus was HIV, and here to sift the facts from the fiction and explain how the AIDS crisis transformed everything from sexuality to healthcare is Deborah Gold, CEO of the National AIDS Trust. One of our partners for today’s episode is Target Pilates. If you’d like ...
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Homeless Vets

May 7, 2023 • 42 mins
Homelessness has always been present in America: you've probably seen it in movies and TV, from jovial Charlie Chaplin comedies, to traumatised Forrest Gump. But how did we go from the aimless vagabond to nationwide crisis? Why did Americans suddenly start to care after Vietnam? And is there anyway to tackle homelessness? We're chatting all this and more with the Manhattan Institute's Stephen Eide. Learn more about your ad choices....
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Foreign Debt

April 30, 2023 • 43 mins
We’ve hit the 80s and Reagan’s low tax and defence spending have contributed to the America’s worst foreign debt in history. It turns out the US has consistently been in debt, so why does this time matter? Well, because they’re borrowing heavily from the Japanese, and have turned from creditors to creditees. It leads to the deindustrialisation of the Midwest, the rise of Sony and the Walkman, and even Bill Clinton’s affair with Mon...
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Heavy Metal Suicide

April 23, 2023 • 42 mins
!sretratseriF kcab emocleW... What's that funny sentence? A secret hidden message of course! Because this week we're getting into the weeds of heavy metal and Satanic Panic. Were Judas Priest hiding secret messages in their songs? Was music threatening the very fabric of the modern world? And where did the moral panic go? It's a complicated, tragic, and often absurd story, so music journalist and metal-head Michael Hann is back to ...
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Sally Ride

April 16, 2023 • 49 mins
RIDE SALLY RIDE! We can’t believe it’s true, but Sally Ride is the birth name of the woman who’d later to become the First American woman to orbit space. Talk about nominative determinism! And what an extraordinary woman she was: from tennis player mentored by THE Billy Jean King, to lifelong advocate for women in STEM, her impact can’t be understated. But why were people so averse to woman-astronauts? Why did she hide her sexualit...
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Wheel of Fortune

April 9, 2023 • 43 mins
It's the game that's spun its way into the hearts of millions: today we're taking a wild ride through the history of the ICONIC game show, Wheel of Fortune. But how did a billionaire's childhood memories of hangman, turn into a cultural phenomenon? What are things actually like behind the scenes? Who turned up drunk for an audition? And how did David Letterman nearly end up hosting it? Today we're joined by Wheel superfan and games...
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Russians in Afghanistan

April 2, 2023 • 59 mins
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support the rise of communism in the country, beginning a series of constant conflict that Afghanistan still faces today. It’s also had huge impacts on our geopolitical climate today - to fight Russian communism, the US backed and funded rebels, who’d later become the Taliban, who rose to power, and continue to rule today, after the civil war which followers Russia’s eventual retreat...
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Ayatollahs in Iran

March 26, 2023 • 58 mins
In 1979, Iran’s pro-Western Shah was overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini, ushering in the Iranian Revolution and Iran’s shift to an Islamic Republic. But the hope many people thought Khomeini represented, quickly soured as his zeal led to increasing amounts of oppression. And despite it all, this revolution still holds strong today, only recently starting to face real threats to its stability. So how has it lasted so long? What do the...
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Terror on the Airline

March 19, 2023 • 39 mins
Listeners, strap yourselves in. The late 20th century was an era of glamorous air travel, where you could saunter right through to the plane and buy your ticket in your seat (alongside your martini). But, alongside the glamour was a slew of sky-jackings, with hundreds of hijackings taking place across the world. But who were behind these? why were they so prevalent? How did it impact the public? And WHY did some hijackers bring a b...
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Palestine

March 12, 2023 • 40 mins
Why Billy chose to encapsulate this behemoth of a topic in a single lyric, we'll never know. But this week, we're talking Palestine and all it experienced in the 20th century. Wars, protests, land grabs, displacement: the atrocities of this era are still being felt, and carried out, today. It's not something we were ever taught much about, but luckily we're joined by the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia Univ...
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