# Historical events most people only know of because a song was written about them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 2, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882 "2010-08-02T13:35:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/101 "2011-05-05T16:17:01Z")
nm - I tried to post a mildly NSFW URL and can’t figure out how to break the URL. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/102 "2011-05-05T16:34:53Z")
**Battle of New Orleans** was the first think that came to my mind. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/103 "2011-05-05T17:06:37Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Just thinking back… I learned a lot from the one LP that I actually liked when I found it in my parents’ stacks of vinyl as a kid: a live Kingston Trio album. > > Which of course had the plodding-yet-somehow-popular _ **Tom Dooley** _… > > _“This time tomorrow, reckon where I’ll be. > Hadn’t a-been for Grayson, I’d a-been in Tennessee.”_ > … Which they STOLE from the Smothers Brothers! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/104 "2011-05-07T01:29:12Z")
I knew about thalidomide from college, anthropology maybe? Also I had a good friend whose mother had one of those babies… well before either of us were born though. Nearly everything I know about Kent State and Vietnam I learned from Doonesbury 😉 I was inspired to learn the history of the bra from Bette Midler, while not an earthshaking historical event, those of us with “vast tracts of land” do appreciate significane of it. I did look up the Edmund Fitzgerald as well. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/105 "2011-05-07T03:17:34Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > [The hanging of Tom Dula (Dooley)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dooley_%28song%29). > [@bup](#): > > Or the murder perpetrated by [Tom Dooley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dooley_%28song%29) (Dula). > [@BMalion](#): > > Which they STOLE from the Smothers Brothers! Nope! Smothers Brothers didn’t steal it. They were w-a-a-a-y later than Kingston Trio. Kingston Trio actually stole it from someone else. I have the vinyl of the Kingston Trio. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/106 "2011-05-07T03:59:45Z")
“Bloody Sunday” in Ireland because of U2. ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/107 "2011-05-07T08:05:43Z")
The Zoot Suit Riots in LA in 1943: “Zoot Suit Riot” by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and “Hey, Pachuco!” by Royal Crown Revue. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/108 "2011-05-07T10:00:32Z")
I first learned about the Messerschmidt 262 from the Blue Oyster Cult song _M.E. 262_. Similarly, I would never have known abou the Brighton beach riots if not for the Who’s _Quadrophenia_. It was Counting Crows’ song _Richard Manuel Is Dead_ that informed me that Richard Manuel was dead (and lead me to learn who Richard Manuel was). Alestorm’s cover of _Flower of Scotland_ taught me about the Battle of Bannockburn. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/109 "2011-05-07T11:41:43Z")
**Would** have known without the song: The Red Baron Eva Peron Edsel Panmunjom Thalidomide Bernie Goetz Kent State shootings Whiskey Rebellion Battle of Borodino Babylonian Captivity Year Without a Summer (but I keep forgetting the name of the volcano) Pepin the Hunchback (but I had heard of Pepin the Short, which should be enough for full credit) Acadian Diaspora Adm. Fisher Gen. Guderian Tiger tank Brutal treatment of returning Russian soldiers Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago Basque separatists Rep. of Rhodesia French Revolution Palace of Versailles Jean-Paul Marat Teapot Dome scandal (but maybe not all other Harding administration scandals) Rasputin The _Bismarck_ Kiev Brandenburg Sherman’s March, etc Charlotte Corday Battle of New Orleans Buddy Holly Battle of Passchendaele James brothers Mason-Dixon Line Columbus/1492 Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (There are a few people still alive who read the newspapers back in the 1960s) James K. Polk (he got us Texas, California, and a few other states) Buffalo Soldiers Battle of Britain Alexander the Great Flight of Icarus Sioux wars Rime of the Ancient Mariner Sacco and Vanzetti Rodney King Nero (now generally considered not to have fiddled) Waterloo Ma Barker Paul Revere Clear Lake Iowa plane crash Zoot Suit Riots Messerschmitt 262 Battle of Bannockburn Would **not** have known without the song (highly questionable notability in size 1 tpye): The _Edmund Fitzgerald_ Sir Richard Grenville Bloody Sunday Casey Jones Plane crash at Los Gatos Tom Dula (aka Dooley) Roddy McCorley 1948 Boston mayoral campaign Stagger Lee Frances Farmer Joe Hill Wreck of the Old 97 Springhill mining disaster 1833 Leonid meteor shower Ira Hayes 1927 Mississippi flood Battle of the Beanfield Anti-Massacre Movement Brighton beach riots Richard Manuel Unsure if would have known without song/poem: Battle of Baltimore Tripoli operation Alaskan Gold rush Battle of Balaclava ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/110 "2011-05-07T14:18:58Z")
oops repeat ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/111 "2011-05-07T15:11:24Z")
When I was a kid in day camp, we used to sing this song on the bus: \*Oh they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue, And they thought they built a ship that the water couldn’t go through. But the Good Lord raised his hand and said the ship would never land. It was sad when the great ship went down. Etc. \* ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/112 "2011-05-07T20:29:05Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Nobody would know about Hurrican Cater but for [Bob Dylan](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/hurricane_20021332.html) I came in to mention that. The worst part is that there’s real doubt about whether he was innocent, whether or not racism played a role. So the song rather gives a dubious account of things. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/113 "2011-05-08T22:08:36Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > edmund fitzgerald for sure. but the obvious answers come from most of the things mentioned in Billy Joel’s We didn’t start the fire. > > i mean, just off the top of my head: edsel was a no go, panmunjom, children of thalidomide, and bernie Goetz would have all been unexposed to me had it not been for the song. > [@msmith537](#): > > I thought it was children of Dolemite. Nope. It’s [thalidomide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_didn%27t_start_the_fire#1958). Thalidomide was a sedative which was commonly prescribed to pregnant women in the late 50s to early 60s in order to treat symptoms of morning sickness. It was withdrawn in 1961 when it was found to cause severe congenital birth defects in babies born to women who had been prescribed or given thalidomide. It was quite the scandal and led to more rigorous testing of drugs before they could be approved for sale. It was approved for sale in the UK, Germany, and Canada, among other nations. It had not been approved in the U.S., however millions of tablets had been distributed to doctors in a clinical testing program, who gave them out to their patients. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/114 "2011-05-09T00:33:55Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Which would also qualify as “historical events most people only know because of a painting about them”. Guernica. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/115 "2011-05-09T02:30:01Z")
I knew about it, but I wonder how many Siouxsie & the Banshee fans first heard about [Mt. Vesuvius destroying Pompeii](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79) from their song “Cities In Dust.” [Lyrics](http://www.guitaretab.com/s/siouxsie-and-the-banshees/115281.html) [Music video](http://youtu.be/_hMagNuhLkk) [Audio only](http://youtu.be/tKx_MSIbGgg) (much better quality) > [@SurrenderDorothy](#): > > I had never heard of [The Year Without a Summer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer) until I heard the Rasputina song [1816, The Year Without a Summer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxeXHMHOcqQ) (youtube link) and looked it up to see if it was something they just made up or if it was real. So many of these are fascinating but this especially so to me. Thanks for the links. I knew who Rasputina since they started, but for some reason I had never heard that song. I hadn’t heard of the historical event either, though I knew of some of the results, such as Frankenstein. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/116 "2011-05-09T04:17:21Z")
I learned more about that navigating, masturbating, son-of-a-bitch, Columbo from [_Christopher Columbus_](http://www.timshome.com/css/columbo.htm) by R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders featuring [Leila Jane Dornacker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leila_Jane_Dornacker) (noted helicopter passenger and actress (the mysterious Nurse Murch in _The Right Stuff_)) than I learned about him in school! (Very NSFW, and unfortunately clipped short, YouTube video [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7J_YsRCvuw).) CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/117 "2011-05-09T08:10:57Z")
I think the winner of this thread is Nelson Mandela. Be honest, if you knew who he was before 1984 or so you were probably South African. The Special AKA’s “Free Nelson Mandela” brought his plight into the public’s consciousness, at least in the UK. There ended up being a big concert in his honor and Simple Minds also did a song. Now by the late 80s everyone knew who he was but Jerry Dammers may have indirectly set the mechanism in motion toward his release. I didn’t know who Leonard Pelletier was until I heard Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Crazy Life.” Apparently, there was a mining disaster in New York, according to the Bee Gees. I have never heard this song but I’ve seen it enough on compilations, etc. that I think, “what an odd topic for a song.” ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/118 "2011-05-09T08:27:58Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > Apparently, there was a mining disaster in New York, according to the Bee Gees. I have never heard this song but I’ve seen it enough on compilations, etc. that I think, “what an odd topic for a song.” And a little wikipedia research reveals that the song is actually about the Aberfan mining catastrophe of 1966. If you need nightmare fuel read up on this. Over 100 young kids died. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882/119 "2011-05-09T09:42:09Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I came in to mention that. > > The worst part is that there’s real doubt about whether he was innocent, whether or not racism played a role. So the song rather gives a dubious account of things. Well there’s always the 1999 film which may just have introduced it to a lot of people: > **[The Hurricane (1999 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hurricane_%281999_film%29)** > > The Hurricane is a 1999 American biographical sports crime drama film directed and produced by Norman Jewison. The film stars Denzel Washington as Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, a former middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. The script was adapted by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon from Carter's 1974 autobiography The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender To 45472 and the 1991 non-fiction work Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Freeing o... But I guess you could argue that without the song there’d never have been the film. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-events-most-people-only-know-of-because-a-song-was-written-about-them/548882.md?page=5)