Bell The Cat - The Fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat. One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat. All of them make excuses. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan not only on how desirable the outcome would be, but also on how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan. - The story gives rise to the idiom to bell the cat, which means to attempt, or agree to perform, an impossibly difficult task.Historically it was the basis of the nickname given the Scottish nobleman, Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus. In 1482, at a meeting of nobles who wanted to depose and hang James III's favourite, Robert Cochrane, Lord Gray remarked, Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat? The challenge was accepted and successfully accomplished by the Earl of Angus. In recognition of this, he was always known afterwards as Archie Bell-the-cat. - One of the earliest versions of the story appears as a parable critical of the clergy in Odo of Cheriton's Parabolae. Written around 1200, it was afterwards translated into Welsh, French and Spanish. Some time later the story is found in the work now referred to as Ysopet-Avionnet, which is largely made up of Latin poems by the 12th century Walter of England, followed by a French version dating from as much as two centuries later. It also includes four poems not found in Walter's Esopus; among them is the tale of "The Council of the Mice".

The Black Prince - Edward, Prince of Wales, known as "The Black Prince", the eldest son of King Edward III and Philippa of Hainaut, was born at Woodstock on the 15th of June 1330. Contemporaries called him Edward of Woodstock, and his surname of the Black Prince cannot be traced back earlier than the 16th century. It is supposed to have been derived from his wearing black armor. - His real career begins, however, with Edward III's Norman campaign of 1346. On landing at La Hogue he was knighted by his father, and took a prominent part in the whole of the campaign. He commanded the right wing of the English forces at Crecy, and, though hard pressed for a time by the French, took his full share in gaining the victory. Next year he was at the siege of Calais, and returned to England in October 1347 with his father - The character Pyle in Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American has a dog named Prince after The Black Prince. Fowler says to him, "the one who massacred all the women and children in Limoges". Edward and Joan are supporting characters in The Lady Royal, by Molly Costain Haycraft, a fictional accounting of the life of Edward's sister Isabella. Edward and Canterbury Cathedral are mentioned in Chapter 52 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: "Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water."
Mutiny on the Bounty - The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the commanding officer, William Bligh. According to most accounts, the sailors were attracted to the idyllic life on the Pacific island of Tahiti and repelled by the harsh treatment from their captain. - Mutiny on the Bounty is the title of the 1932 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, based on the mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh, commanding officer of the Bounty in 1789. It has been made into several films and a musical. It was the first of what became "The Bounty Trilogy", which continues with Men Against the Sea, and concludes with Pitcairn's Island.
Hatfields and McCoy - Two families of the West Virginia–Kentucky back country along the Tug Fork, off the Big Sandy River. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield while the McCoys of Kentucky under the leadership of Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy. Those involved in the feud descended from Ephraim Hatfield and William McCoy. The feud has entered the American folklore lexicon as a metaphor for any bitterly feuding rival parties. More than a century later, the story of the feud has become a modern allegory on the perils of family honor, justice and vengeance. - The Hatfields and McCoys had their own Romeo and Juliet tale in the form of Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield.

-Misses O’Leary Cow - The fire consumed the O'Leary family's barn at 137 DeKoven Street.[1] Due to a high wind and dry conditions it spread to burn a large percentage of the city, an event known as the Great Chicago Fire. After the Great Chicago Fire, Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Ahern published the story that the fire started when a cow kicked over a lantern while a woman was milking it. Though the woman was not named in the original report, Mrs O'Leary was soon identified, since her barn had been the source. Various illustrations and caricatures soon circulated depicting Mrs O'Leary with the cow. - Other theories posit that Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan or Louis M. Cohn, who claimed to have been gambling in the barn with the O'Learys' son and several other boys, were involved in the start of the fire.

St Francis of Asis - Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, he begged with the beggars at St. Peter's.The experience moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which was an enclosed order for women, as well as the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance. By this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to