Chicago Cubs outfielder Bill Nicholson earned the nickname “Swish”, because he struck out so often. He led the major leagues in strikeouts, fanning 83 times in 1946. In 2015, there were 170 players in the major leagues who struck out more than 83 times. Chris Davis leading them with 208 strikeouts. This year, Justin Upton already has 63, a quarter of the way into the season.
Varina Davis, second wife of Jefferson Davis and “First Lady of the Confederacy”, was rumored to have African or Native American ancestry. Her olive complexion (attributed to Welsh ancestors) was considered unattractive, and some white Richmonders compared her to a mulatto or an Indian “squaw.”
NM - ninja.
The 1946 St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, without a single player on the team who had ever played before for any other major league team. Every one of the players on the roster originally broke into MLB in a Cardinal uniform.
Missed the edit window due to ninja - added ‘second’
The 1984 Detroit Tigers opened that season with a 9–0 start, were 35–5 after 40 games, and never relinquished the lead during the entire season. They went on to win the World Series over the San Diego Padres.
The 2016 Chicago Cubs are off to a hot start and are rivaling the hot start of only the 1984 Detroit Tigers. The lovable Cubbies are overdue for a championship. Their last was in 1907 and 1908 when they were the first team to win repeat World Series. Besides being the first team to appear in a second straight World Series, they were also the first to appear in a third straight World Series. They lost in 1906. But the Cubbies are overdue!
Another ninja. To tie it all together, the St. Louis Cardinals have won the most World Series Championships of any National League team, with 11. The Giants have the second most with 8.
In Stephen King’s time-travel novel 11/22/63, about trying to prevent JFK’s assassination, the hero goes back to the past from the year 2011. In 11.22.63, the recent Hulu eight-part miniseries based on the book, he goes back from 2016.
King Stephen was a grandson of William the Conqueror through William’s daughter, Adela. He became king in preference to his cousin the Empress Matilda, who was a granddaughter of William through his son Henry I.
The facts surrounding the death of William the Conqueror’s son William II remain an enduring medieval mystery. He was shot with an arrow while hunting in the New Forest.
The New Forest pony is one of the recognized mountain and moorland or native pony breeds of the British Isles. The breed is indigenous to the New Forest in Hampshire in southern England, where equines have lived since before the last Ice Age; remains dating back to 500,000 BC have been found within 50 miles (80 km) of the heart of the modern New Forest.
From 1976 to 1980 the Mitsubishi Lancer automobile was sold in the USA as the Plymouth Arrow.
Added from ninja: the Lancer was also sold as the Dodge Colt, but was not typically considered to be in the class of ‘pony cars’.
Jogindar Singh drove a Mitsubishi Lancer to the winnrs circle in the 1974 East African Safari Rally.
I drove a rental Mitsubishi Lancer through the game parks in Tanzania the year after… That was kinda cool. A few years later, I had a '78 Dodge (Mitsubishi) Colt of my own – amazing car, one of the best I’ve ever had, got over 200K miles out of it, sold it still running…
“The Lancers” is a square dance, a variant of the Quadrille, a set dance performed by four couples, particularly popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The dance is made up of five figures or tours, each performed four times so that each couple dances the lead part. It exists in many variants in several countries.
The Musical Ride of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is modelled on British cavalry lancer drills.
The Mitsubishi re-badge was not the first effort by Dodge to market a Lancer. The 1955 model line include a Royal Lancer, which was America’s first “three-tone” car. One popular color choice was a black top, maroon side panels, and a white hood and trunk. When my dad bought his, the dealer said some shipping blemishes required touch up painting, so he told them to paint the top white, and had the only two-tone Royal Lancer I ever saw…
Bugs Bunny’s line “What a maroon!” is believed to be a mispronunciation of “moron” for comic effect, but the answer is not clear, as outlined in this earlier SDMB thread: What’s a Maroon?
In the 1953 cartoon short Bully for Bugs, Bugs Bunny mistakenly ends up in a bullring where a matador is challenging Toro the Bull. Bugs taunts Toro by calling him an “imbecile”, and an “ultra maroon.”
Ne plus ultra is a Latin phrase that means ‘no more beyond’. and is used these days to signify that it is the perfect example of a certain something, without flaw or defect.
Hylomorphism is the theory whereby substance or essence (ousia) is comprised of both matter and form. The theory was developed by Aristotle. Plato had his Theory of Forms, or Theory of Ideas, whereby non-physical ideas represent the most accurate reality. According to Plato, Socrates postulated a world of ideal Forms.
The theorem cited in #29467 is usually attributed to Apollonius but appears in Aristotle’s Meteorologica. 
Aristotle was born more than a century before Apollonius.
In his Meteorologica, Aristotle described a round earth as "“The earth is surrounded by water, just as that is by the sphere of air, and that again by the sphere called that of fire.”