Congrats, Sampiro, on a smashingly successful thread, and on the 5000th post!
A fictionalized Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius appears in the 2000 action-adventure movie Gladiator, played by Richard Harris. He is (ahistorically) murdered by his son Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix.
The city of Phoenix, Arizona, was so named because it was built on the location of a pre-Columbian city of the Hohokam people.
Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird” describes a figure from Russian folklore resembling the phoenix - it s a brightly glowing bird, usually the object of a hero’s quest, and is often the harbinger of either good or bad tidings. Mashing it up with the story of the villain Kaschei the Deathless, Stravinsky wrote it in 1910 for Paris’ Ballets Russes under a commission from Sergei Diaghilev, both men taking advantage of a contemporary French fad for Russian culture.
And congrats and thanks, Sampiro. A better-chosen topic for #5000 there could not be. 
The last name Alcindor, which Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went by before his conversion to Islam, means “firebird” in Arabic.
Karim Abdul-Jabbar was a running back for the Miami Dolphins and other football teams. He also wore the same jersey number as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with his last name above it. Kareem sued Karim, getting a court order to prevent Karim from using that last name and number for merchandising purposes. After he lost the lawsuit, he changed his name to Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar
The 1973 George C. Scott, Trish van Devere and Paul Sorvino movie The Day of the Dolphin is about a scientist teaching two highly-intelligent dolphins to speak. The dolphins are kidnapped by conspirators who plan to have the dolphins place a bomb on the hull of the presidential yacht, but things don’t quite work out that way.
George C Scott was nominated, and won, and Oscar for his role in Patton. Scott refused to accept the award, calling it “a goddamn meat parade.” Years later, Scott mentioned in an interview that he had verbally told the Academy to donate his Oscar to the Patton Museum, but since the instructions were never put in writing, it was never delivered.
George Patton served as a cavalry officer early in his career, and designed a saber that became standard issue and was used for many years. He took part in the unsuccessful 1916-17 hunt for Mexican bandit Pancho Villa under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing.
The F-86 Sabre was a fighter jet developed by North American Aricraft for the U.S. Air Force. Introduced in the late 1940s, it saw extensive service in the Korean War, where it was a match for the Russian-made Mig 15. Highly advanced for its time, the F-86 was considered obsolescent by 1960.
The NAA P-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre, and the Northrop T-38, all widely considered among the most beautiful airplanes ever made, were all designed by the underappreciated Edgar Schmued.
Roald Dahl, usually remembered as a children’s author, was just as successful writing mystery short stories, and won three Edgar Awards during his career.
Roald Dahl was fluent in English, Norwegian and Swahili. He was married for thirty years to the actress Patricia Neal, who died earlier this summer.
Roald Dahl was a fighter ace in WW2 (5 kills in a Hurricane in Greece before a medical grounding), and then a spy based in Washington who helped Churchill and his cabinet get the “real story” about the US government’s intentions.
He broke into the children’s literature business with a book about gremlins, mysterious creatures who caused inexplicable mechanical failures in airplanes, invented anonymously at an RAF base at which he had been assigned.
Great Britain’s Royal Air Force is the oldest independent air-combat service in the world. It is slated for major cuts in the current proposed budget of Prime Minister David Cameron, which would reduce it to fewer planes than it had during World War I.
Director James Cameron was nominated for the Best Director Oscar in 2010 for Avatar, but lost the award to his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow (who won for The Hurt Locker).
In some sects of Hinduism Siddharta Gautama is viewed not as Buddha but as an avatar of Vishnu while in some Hindu sects he holds no significance at all.
Keanu Reeves played Buddha in the movie Little Buddha.
Martha Reeves, the lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas, served on the Detroit city council from 2005 to '09.
In the movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the duo’s time travel adventures briefly take them to the future, where they meet the Three Most Important People in the World – who, as with all people from the future, are deeply affected by Bill and Ted’s philosophy (“Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!”). The three were all played by rock musicians: Clarence Clemons (saxophone player for the E Street Band), Fee Waybill (lead singer for The Tubes), and Martha Davis (lead singer for The Motels).
The first recognized motel, the Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo, was built in California in 1925. The name, of course, comes from “motor hotel”. The best-known popular depiction of one is likely the Bates Motel in the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho.