I learned that in the year of 1941, when the war had just begun, that the Germans had the biggest ships and they had the biggest guns. The Bismark was the fastest ship to ever sail the seas, with guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees.
All thanks to Johnny Horton.
Err…different Wars, right? Walting Matilda is the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI, the “shores of Tripoli” is the first Barbary War (and the Halls of Montezuma) is the Mexican American war.
There you go again with your facts and all… 
Oops. My bad. :o Can’t get my 'poli’s straight.
I know little of Kiev, except they have chickens there and some pretty grand gates.
Sticking with my American’s sense of geography, I would never have known there was a Brandenburg had its Grand Poobah not rung up that Bach fellow.
Although every American knows about the Civil War, I think “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” provided some enlightenment to Notherners about the devastation wrought on the South.
Which would also qualify as “historical events most people only know because of a painting about them”.
I disagree; without the song *Ohio *Kent State is Orangeburg.
i was going to say horton for the battle of new orleans. that and him telling me about the alaskan gold rush.
People know about Bloody Sunday mostly because ofU2.
Outside the UK and Ireland that is.
Some people found out about Buddy Holly when Weezer did a song named for him.
I doubt too many people would remember Casey Jones if they didn’t have to sing that folksong in elementary school.
As much as 1812 always give me goosebumps, I know Borodino because Napoleon’s would’ve been better if he’d lost it.
My grandfather listened to him a lot while I was growing up. I learned a lot of history from him.
While I had heard of the Red Baron earlier than I read Snoopy (there was an old C64 game of the same name,) Snoopy edumacated me about a Sopwith Camel.
I learned about the native peoples of the Americas from 7 Cities of Gold.
I wouldn’t have been aware (or as aware) of the Battle of Passchendaele had it not been for the Iron Maiden song ‘Paschendale’.
I certainly would never have heard of the January 28, 1948 crash of a plane near Los Gatos Canyon had it not been for Woody Guthrie’s song ‘Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)’, which I became familiar with through the versions by Dolly Parton and the Highwaymen.
And yeah, I probably would have only a very, very vague idea of who Evita was if Madonna hadn’t starred in the movie version of the musical.
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.”
The Trio did a lengthy spoken introduction explaining the Irish rebellion before a spirited Roddy McCorley:
*“To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die, on the bridge of Toome today.” *
Their intros were great. After explaining what life was like for Frank and Jesse James in the wild, rooting for rutabagas: “Put yourself in their place…you’da been mean too!”
“When Jesse James was a lad he killed many-a man. He robbed the Glendale train.
And the people they did say for many miles away, it was robbed by Frank and Jesse James!”
And of course, from The Merry Minuet, I also learned that they’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran. What nature doesn’t do to us, will be done by our fellow man.
I knew all about the Edmund Fitzgerald, because I remember when it happened. The newspaper we got in our town was The Times-News from Thunder Bay. That city, being a Great Lakes port, naturally had in-depth coverage whenever any big ship went missing on the Lakes.
Mark Knopfler and James Taylor did a song about Mason and Dixon and their surveying line in the States. I always thought it was drawn up during your civil war, but apparently not the case! I learned something indeed, or at least, was curious enough to look at it on wikipedia!
No. The most critical difference between Kent State and Orangeburg is that the Kent State students were white. The famous photograph is another factor. The song comes in third place at best.