“Cancer” or the Greek word “Canker” means “crab” in Latin, a sea creature which has no connection to the disease. Although no one is certain who coined this term, most sources point to Claudius Galen of Pergamum, a Greek Physician of 2nd Century AD Rome. Claudius Galen thought that the swollen veins surrounding a tumor resembled a crab’s limbs.
A. E. Van Vogt’s novel Empire of the Atom is a space opera retelling of Roman history, taken pretty blatantly from Robert Graves’s I, Claudius
For Empire of the Ants (1977), director Bert I. Gordon created some of the special ant-effects :rolleyes: by shooting magnified images of the Panamanian bullet ant.
That’s one of my favorite facts learned from this thread. Thanks.
In play:
Trebizond was a tiny independent state on the Black Sea in what is now Turkey and was just a city and its hinterlands for most of its existence- smaller than many counties and duchies in Europe- but was nevertheless called “The Empire of Trebizond” because it was founded by members of Komnenos imperial family of Byzantium who claimed themselves the true emperors of the Eastern Empire even though they had been driven from Constantinople.
Sochi, Russia, is located on the eastern Black Sea coast. Depending on how one defines Europe and Asia, some claim Sochi is in Europe but those who claim the Caucasus Mountains divide the continent claim that Sochi is in Asia. The city was given its current name in 1896 when it was named for the local River Sochi.
Soviet strongman Josef Stalin had a retreat in Sochi, Russia which is now open to tourists.
The Stalin Tank was a series of armored heavy tanks used by Eastern Bloc countries. Ironically, Stalin almost cancelled Russia’s heavy tank program in 1943 due to their poor performance and high costs, until the IS-1 (Iosif Stalin Tank 1) began deliveries in October of that year.
The Robert Harris novel Archangel is about a secret posthumously born illegitimate son of Stalin who has been reared since infancy in Arkhangelsk to one day resume his father’s work.
The city of Arkhangelsk was the major seaport of Russia until 1703, when Peter the Great established St. Petersburg
Peter the Great executed his eldest son from his first marriage for high treason. The execution was carried out in secrecy.
(Thanks, Dad) 
Mary Surratt, one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, was tried and convicted by military tribunal in 1865. She was the first woman to be executed (by hanging) by the United States government. The tribunal recommended that her death sentence be commuted to a life prison sentence; President Andrew Johnson allowed the execution to go forward and later claimed he had never been told of the tribunal’s recommendation.
Since 1965, three people have been executed under the death penalty by hanging in the United States. The most recent hanging capital punishment was in 1996 when convicted murderer Billy Bailey was hanged in Delaware.
Axl Rose, lead singer for Guns N’ Roses, was named William Bailey for a period of his childhood, when his mother remarried. The Baileys attended a Pentecostal church in Lafayette, Indiana up to 8 times a week, and young Axl even taught Sunday school. He later became a habitual delinquent, ending that phase only after moving to Los Angeles to escape charges.
Hughie Cannon, who wrote Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey? also wrote the standard Frankie and Johnny. A later song, He Done Me Wrong, recounts Bill Bailey’s death.
William Conrad was the original Matt Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke. When it was adapted for TV, Conrad was not considered for the role because of his corpulence. He continued radio and voiceover work (most notably as the narrator for Rocky and Bullwinkle) until the show Cannon was created for him in 1971.
HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, was rated for 104 cannon by the Royal Navy.
Cabo Trafalgar (Cape Trafalgar) is on the southern coast of Spain, about a 60-mile drive away from Gibraltar. It is on the Atlantic coast and not the Mediterranean coast. The most prominent structure on the cape is a 34-meter-high lighthouse (51 meters above sea level), the faro de Cabo Trafalgar, built in 1860.
The southernmost spot in Africa is Cape Agulhas about 220 Km by car from Cape Town.
The southernmost point of the USA is on the big island of Hawaii.
Many places can be considered the southernmost point of Europe, including Tarifa, Spain; La Restinga, Canary Islands; and the Greek island of Gavdos