What are your life’s top 10 historical political and pop culture moments or memories?

This story is inspired by Fall Out Boy’s lovely song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” — they cover Billy Joel’s famous song while mentioning a myriad of events from the past three decades.

'We Didn't Start the Fire' Is Updated for a New Generation

You can find the lyrics here. Every time you hear the song, you catch something new.

In no particular order, covering the same period as Fall Out Boy in their song (1989–2023):

• 1990. This one will be unknown to most Western readers. I was ten, growing up in Soviet Moscow. We were in a hotel — on vacation in Estonia, then still part of the USSR — when the evening news showed details of a car crash killing Victor Tsoi, the leader of Kino, Russia’s most prominent rock band. The band’s reach was huge. Tsoi’s music had a social message, but he was not about politics. It was — and is still — beautiful modern rock. The music connected with candor and boldness, and the singer himself was an enigma — asocial and unorthodox…