“Who killed Acme and R.K. Maroon?
Need to find out by . . . yesterday noon!?”
“Don’t just run, Forrest, run
Take a time machine, son
You’ll arrive not a moment too soon”

Event: Birth of Robert Zemeckis, director of the Back to the Future series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, and others
Year: 1952
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zemeckis

To the English, it seemed quite a coup
‘Til the Maid made her way, charging through
‘Bout three hundred years passed
‘Cross the ocean, at last
The great city was founded anew

Events: Joan of Arc leads the charge against the Boulevart-Tourelles, which resulted in the lifting of the English siege of Orléans; the city of New Orleans is founded
Years: 1429; 1718
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Orl%C3%A9ans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans

The first prez to appear on TV
Was not Truman, and not Kennedy
At the New York World’s Fair
(And nowhere beyond there)
Was a broadcast that starred Frankie D

Event: Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to appear on television
Year: 1939
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_New_York_World%27s_Fair#Grand_opening

Why’d they fix it, if it wasn’t broke?
By the tests, it seemed a master stroke
Pepsi made them run scared
But they were not prepared
For the torrent of wrath they’d provoke

Event: New Coke is released
Year: 1985
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

Not content to just sit there like freight
The jailed King carried on the debate
“Though by courts we’re dismissed
We will ever resist
It’s not justice if you have to wait”

Event: Martin Luther King Jr. writes “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Year: 1963
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail

Baseball’s tough at a hundred degrees
But the dome blocked the sun (and the breeze)
There the Cougars beat Lew
Billie Jean won big too
And it even could house refugees

Event: The Harris County Domed Stadium (later called the Houston Astrodome) opens
Year: 1965
Learn more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrodome

Now, an island of flowers it’s not
But the sunshine they’ve certainly got
When you do there set forth
You go south to get north
And their voting with trouble’s oft fraught

Event: Ponce de León and his expedition become the first Europeans to sight what is now Florida
Year: 1513
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ponce_de_Le%C3%B3n
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida

Pick just one? I don’t know how you’d try
Eagle? Elephant? Donkey? Oh my!
But I think, in all candor
It’s the gerrymander
And the votes back me up! Ain’t that sly?

Event: A cartoon depicting a “Gerry-mander” (a strange animal in the peculiar shape of a new Massachusetts congressional district) appears in the Boston Gazette
Year: 1812
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymander

Calling images out of thin air
They could show scenes that weren’t really there
With their magical light
They caused dreams to take flight
Quite the wizards, the bros Lumière

Event: The Lumière brothers record their first film footage on their cinematograph (one of the first movie cameras)
Year: 1895
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re

More than fifty-nine mill’ have enrolled
To do duty and honor uphold
But to me what’s most dear
Is the eight weeks a year
When those marvelous Thin Mints are sold

Event: The Girl Scouts (then Girl Guides) of the USA are founded
Year: 1912
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Scouts_of_the_USA