Six degrees
On January 10 (of the Roman calendar) 2,059 years ago, Julius Caesar gave flight to the phrase 'the die is cast' when he and his army crossed the river Rubicon (above) from Gaul, in defiance of the senate, to march on Rome. Time has not diminished the potency of Caesar's words: the term was indirectly borrowed to describe a first encounter with crystal meth by tennis ace Andre Agassi ...
Agassi is the only male player to have achieved a career Golden Slam. Despite his philanthropic work, the Armenian-American was criticised for his teenage appearance in a Canon advertisement that coined the catchphrase 'Image is everything'. In his memoir, Agassi wrote, 'They treat this ridiculous throwaway slogan as if it's my Confession, which makes as much sense as arresting Marlon Brando for murder because of a line he uttered in The Godfather' ...
Earning US$85 million on its initial release, Francis Ford Coppola's epic was made on a relatively tight budget, with Paramount initially earmarking only US$2 million to US$3 million. Brando, who was on set for a mere 35 days, didn't memorise his lines, reading from cue cards for most of the movie. Although the actor won an Oscar for his performance, he had been second choice for the part, behind Laurence Olivier ...
One of the greatest actors of the 20th century, Lord Olivier's prolific stage and film career earned him 14 Oscar nominations. The British actor died in 1989 at the age of 82 and his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey alongside some of the people he had portrayed, such as King Henry V and Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding. Olivier worked up to his death, performing one of his last roles at the age of 77 in the sequel to Wild Geese, in which he played Nazi Rudolf Hess ...
Hitler's deputy was a strong advocate of animal welfare. The lifelong vegetarian was an ardent conservationist and keen organic gardener who dabbled in homeopathic medicine. Hess also ordered a mapping of all the ley lines in the Third Reich, indulging his passion in the occult ...
The occult spans numerous beliefs, most of which are religion-based schools of thought that stretch into antiquity. An example of occult rituals can be seen in the pagan 'wicker man' tradition, in which effigies of male forms have been burnt, sometimes with sacrificial humans inside. The tradition endures to this day, although with less of the sacrificing. Its origins are unknown but the first written accounts of it were documented in Commentarii de Bello Gallico, written by Roman leader Julius Caesar.
