The British royal family has placed a voluntary ban on the board game Monopoly within their household. It carries no legal weight, but Prince Andrew made the prohibition public when he revealed that the family had stopped playing because the competitive nature of the game brought out a level of hostility that made it more trouble than it was worth. Even among the Windsors, property trading apparently pushes things too far.

King Louis XI of France arranged the marriage of his daughter Jeanne to Louis of the House of Orleans with calculated intent. The king was well aware that Jeanne was unlikely to produce children, and he hoped the union would quietly bring the Orleans line to an end. His plan did not succeed. Louis of Orleans eventually became Louis XII, at which point he sought an annulment on the grounds of the marriage’s non-consummation, had Jeanne sent to a convent, and pursued a more advantageous match elsewhere.

Clint Eastwood is an anagram of Old West action.

Tim Horton built his reputation as one of Canada’s most respected hockey defensemen, spending the core of his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs and collecting four Stanley Cup championships along the way. Away from the ice, he co-founded the coffee chain that bears his name. His life ended abruptly on February 21, 1974, when he lost control of his sports car on the Queen Elizabeth Way in Ontario while driving home to Buffalo following a game. He was ejected from the vehicle and died at 44. A subsequent blood test showed his alcohol level was twice the legal limit, and amphetamine-barbiturate medication was also found in his system. At the time of his death, 40 Tim Hortons locations were in operation. His business partner Ron Joyce purchased the chain from Horton’s family and built it into the institution it is today.

The Hebrew name Amos means “Carried by God.”

During production of Avatar, James Cameron pushed back against Fox executives who wanted the film cut down to a shorter runtime. He reportedly pointed out that his previous film, Titanic, had generated enough revenue to pay for the building in which they were having the conversation.

One of the earliest functional typewriters, constructed by Pellegrino Turri in 1801, did not use an ink ribbon. To transfer text onto paper, Turri invented carbon paper, a solution that worked well enough to outlast his machine by generations. The abbreviation “cc,” still used in emails to indicate additional recipients, is a direct descendant of that invention.

Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas holds a distinction no other place on earth can claim. Visitors are permitted to dig for diamonds on the site, and anything they uncover is theirs to keep.

The Beach Boys removed their father from his role as their manager due to his controlling approach to the job. He responded by producing a group called The Sunrays, who were constructed to sound like his former clients.

A “bolt from the blue” describes something sudden and completely unexpected, typically with a jarring or shocking quality. The image behind it is a lightning strike appearing out of a clear sky, the last place anyone would expect it to come from. The phrase entered its current form in Thomas Carlyle’s 1837 work The French Revolution.