Fun Facts/This Day in History

[aflycon]

I've decided to start a thread for fun facts, since I love them so much.

Just post your fun fact along with a relevant picture if you can, and we'll all learn something new every day. If you can, try to include something that happened on the day of your post in your post. Sources are appreciated.

I'll start:

Fun fact #1:

Mountbatten.jpg

Our very own Lord Mountbatten could have been called Lord Battenhill, Lord Battenburgh, Lord Battenborough, or Lord Battenbury. However, Mountbatten was settled on when Prince Louis changed his family name from Battenberg in 1917 due to anti-German sentiment in Britain. The other names were suggestions made to the Prince. Source: http://goo.gl/Bce1P

Either way, he's still DJ Battenberg, First Earl of the Funk.

This Day in History (18 February):

On February 18. 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States of America. At the same time in Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II became king of Italy.

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Could you learn all of these things from Wikipedia with less effort? Yeah, but it's more fun this way.

[MrWhales]

Continuing with the British bits, this day in US Navy history, the USS Constitution captured the British brig Catherine

[SMWasder]

Yet more British awesomeness: Tony Iommi is 65 today.

Spoiler! :