Billy Joel (reportedly) wrote this song because he overheard a child say that he felt sorry for "older people" like Billy Joel because no "history" happened in their lifetime, that NOW (or the time the song was written) was going to be the world's most historical time period. The comment got to Billy Joel so much that he sat down and wrote this (We Didn't Start the Fire---The World been Burning since its Been Turning) to prove that his lifetime has been FULL of history. The lyrics of Billy's song covers a broader historical time span than 'Yankee Station's XO's theme of "What Brought the USS Hancock CVA-19 to Sea In Nineteen and sixty-three."

 The Mideast, Kuwait and Iraq, then and now, dominates the news. The China card at the world's poker table, with Taiwan, again comes to the forefront! The Cuba factor has never missed a step on the world stage and its dance with the colossus of the North! On the up side, the nuclear arms race with the former Soviet Union is, for the time being, dormant. The third world countries of the Asian sub-continent take front stage in the world play of nuclear destruction. On the brighter side, the colonial European powers were seeing the sun set on their far-flung colonies. The explosion of new nations being admitted to the United Nations verified the massive movement of subjugated people to freedom.