Louis Armstrong, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Women Vote,
Charlie Chaplin, Mein Kampf, Sacco and Vanzetti

Prohibition, King Tut’s Tomb, Winnie-the-Pooh, Time,
Flappers, Lindbergh, Bubble Gum, Sliced Bread, and Houdini

BBC, League of Nations, Lie Detector, Jazz Singer,
Car Radio, Ragtime, Sigmund Freud, and Insulin

Reader’s Digest, Mickey Mouse, Oxford English Dictionary,
Stock Market, Picasso, Mussolini, Penicillin

CHORUSWe didn't start the fireIt was always burningSince the world's been turningWe didn't start the fireNo we didn't light itBut we tried to fight it
Louis Armstrong was an innovative performer who helped shift jazz from group improvisation to solo improvisation. He was known first as a cornet player, then as a flashy trumpet player, and finally for his raspy singing voice. Armstrong was very influential and has many awards and recognitions.
Babe Ruth was a baseball player in the twenties. He is considered to be the best baseball player ever in many circles. His homerun hitting abilities were unmatched by anyone during his time. He set many records in MLB, some of which are still standing today. He was one of the first players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Al Capone was a famous gangster from Chicago during the Roaring Twenties and the Prohibition Era. He became known as Scarface because of some scars he received from a brawl in Brooklyn. He murdered men early in his life, and is part of the reason Chicago had such a bad name during the 1920’s.
Women Vote- Women got the right to vote after years of lobbying and many people giving their time and energy towards the cause. President Woodrow Wilson tried to push Congress to pass the bill that would become the 19th Amendment, and give women the right to vote in the U.S.
Charlie Chaplin was an English comedian who acted, composed music, mimed, and directed. He was popular near the beginning of the Hollywood Era, and is still looked at today as one of the best mimes ever to be filmed. His silent movies are still found commonly in video stores across the country.
Mein Kampf was a book written by Austrian Adolf Hitler, who went on to become the leader of Germany and a central part of World War II. It propagated many ideas of Hitler which were illustrated larger than life when he took over power in Germany and attempted to eliminate the Jews and those who were of the ‘inferior race.’
Sacco and Vanzetti were immigrants to America who were executed under questionable circumstances. Many people believe that they were innocent and should not have been executed. It is widely believed that there was not enough evidence to make such a decision, and people feel that they may have been executed simply because they were from parts of Europe which had a bad name in America at the time.
Prohibition was the attempt in America to eradicate the use of alcohol by making it illegal. However, it had the opposite effect as there was a rise in illegal selling and trading of moonshine all over the country. One city that is considered a center of this rebellion is Chicago. Al Capone helped create this anarchy and lack of law enforcement that the Roaring Twenties became famous for- from illegal bars, to gangs, Prohibition seemed to magnify the situation.
King Tut’s Tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter. Most Egyptian kings were buried in pyramids, and many of the artifacts were stolen or destroyed by the time archaeologists got to them. It was an important find because the tomb was still sealed, and therefore the artifacts were all there in their original position, which gave archaeologists a better look at Egyptian kings than was available previously.
Winnie-the-Pooh is a children’s story which was written by A. A. Milne. The story originally came out of his son, Christopher Robin Milne, and his adventures with his stuffed animals. Many of his animals have the same names in the storybooks and movies that have been made since Winnie-the-Pooh was first published in a newspaper in 1925.
Time magazine was published on March 3, 1923. Time was started by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce. It was the first ever weekly news magazine in the United States. Time attempts to tell the news through writing about people. Many of the covers feature one person, and the first person ever to appear on the magazine was Joseph G. Cannon.
Flappers were the new breed of women in the 1920’s who wore shorter skirts than was considered acceptable, bobbed their hair, drinking, smoking, listened to jazz, used excessive makeup, drove cars, and treated sex casually. Basically they ignored all social norms and showed their dislike for accepted behavior.
Lindbergh was the first person to fly across the Atlantic in an airplane. He made the flight from New York to Paris in the one-seating plane, Spirit of St. Louis. Charles Lindbergh made the flight on May 20-21, 1927. Lindbergh used his overnight fame to promote U.S. aviation through the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Bubble Gum was perfected in the 1920’s by a man who worked for Fleet Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia. His name was Walter Diemer. He was an accountant, but in his spare time he played around with new bubble gum recipes. Every other early form of bubble gum was too sticky and broke easily. This new form discovered by Diemer was not sticky and it did not break easily.
Sliced Bread is a ‘loaf of bread which has been pre-sliced for convenience. The first sliced bread was sold in 1928 by Chillicothe Baking Company. Sliced bread was then a competing industry, and companies raced to create the best storage device for the bread. After slicing the bread, companies needed to figure out a way to keep the bread together so that it would not spoil as quickly.
Houdini was a well-known escape artist, magician, stunt performer, film producer, actor, and investigator of spiritualists. He is widely regarded as the best escape artist ever. He died in 1926 as a result of apparent appendicitis. It is widely speculated that the appendicitis was a result of a student from McGill University hitting him to test Houdini’s claim of being able to withstand any hit.
BBC stands for British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC was started in 1922 by a group of telecommunication companies to broadcast experimental radio services. In 1927 BBC was granted a Royal Charter and ceased to be a privately owned business. Today BBC is known as a reliable source whose purpose is to educate, inform and entertain.
The League of Nations was the international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The goals of the League of Nations included disarmament, preventing war between nations, improving quality of life throughout the world, and settling disputes through diplomacy rather than war.
Lie Detectors were not used often because of their unreliability. In 1920, a device was developed that recorded both blood pressure responses and galvanic skin response of the patient. The device was first used in Berkeley, California under the command of nationally renowned police chief August Vollmer.
Jazz Singer was a major breakthrough in the movie business. It represented the shift from the old silent movies into the new age of talking movies. The movie had the words synchronized to the movement of the actors. This was the beginning of a new era for the movie business and it set the stage for many more breakthroughs soon to come.
Car Radio was developed in the Roaring Twenties, although it was not available to the average person until later. The car radio allowed people to listen to the radio while they were on the move from one place to another. It was a huge breakthrough because the radio needed to be downsized in order to fit in the car. Many of the radios of the 1920’s were big and bulky, so it was a breakthrough to even think about putting a radio in the car.
Ragtime was a form of American music which set the stage for many movements which in the Twenties were considered somewhat radical. Scott Joplin is considered the king of ragtime. His radical ragtime rampages set the stage for jazz and blues music to come.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian psychologist who developed many theories which were radical for his era. Although a large portion of these theories have been proven invalid, some of his theories persist. He is still considered an important psychologist because of his breakthroughs, particularly in the area of defense mechanisms, sexual desires, and psychoanalysis.
Insulin is ‘a hormone with extensive effects on both metabolism and several other body systems.’ It had been experimented with before, but it was not until the Roaring Twenties that it was discovered to be a cure for diabetes. J. J. R. Macleod was the man who discovered the relation to diabetes.
Reader’s Digest is a general interest, family friendly magazine which was founded in 1922 by Lila Bell Wallace and DeWitt Wallace. Reader’s Digest became a great success, and eventually went international. Today, sales have declined but it is still among the most sold magazines in the history of the world.
Mickey Mouse’s birthday is November 18, 1928. That is the date that Steamboat Willie was released. Mickey Mouse has gone from a cartoon character to a symbol for the company that owns his name, Disney. Mickey’s original name was Mortimer Mouse, but thankfully Walt Disney’s wife told him that Mortimer was not a good name choice.
The Oxford English Dictionary was first published in 1928. The dictionary had been a work which had been in the process for a while, and once it was published, Oxford University was finished with the project. However, time went on and the English language continued to change. The dictionary has had revisions since 1928, adding new words and updating outdated ones.
The Stock Market was a central figure in the Roaring Twenties, especially as the thirties approached. Although the Stock Market is remembered by the crash of 1929, the Stock Market was a symbol of wealth and success. People were making more money and new things were being developed, so people could afford to invest their money into stocks.
Picasso was a famous artist from Spain. He produced modern forms of art which were radical expressions. The prices of his paintings today vary, but some of his paintings have been sold for 45 million dollars, 95 million dollars, and 105 million dollars.
Mussolini was the leader of Italy during World War II. His rise to power occurred during the 1920’s. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922, and stayed in power in Italy until his death in 1945, at the end of World War II.
Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming. Penicillin was a huge breakthrough for medicine, although the people who worked on extracting it were not working on the project for suffering people. Many of them were only working on it because it was an interesting scientific exercise says Australian Nobel Laureate Howard Florey.