Richard Brandon

Richard Brandon was an English hangman in the 1600s. It is thought that he hung Charles I, even though he initially said he wouldn't and later denied having done the deed. The truth is unclear.

Mukhabarat

Mukhabarat is Arabic for intelligence, and is the name for several intelligence agencies in Islamic nations. The most well known is the Iraqi and the Egpytian.

Extraordinary Rendition

Regular rendition is the process of simply returning a prisoner to their home country. Extraordinary rendition is where an enemy combatant is captured and sent straight to another state without setting foot on American soil. The CIA uses extraordinady rendition in order to bypass a US-signed anti-torture treaty. They export prisoners to countries where they know they will be tortured for information.

One senior level CIA man once said that if you want a good interogation, send them to Jordan, if you want them tortured, send them to Syria, and if you want them to just outright dissapear, send them to Egypt. (source: Wikipedia. Ha!)

Privileged presses

Only certain presses in England are authorized to print the Book of Common Prayer, which exists under perpetual Royal Copyright. These presses are the Cambridge and Oxford University presses. Although most presses would need a special letter to print the book, those two presses are allowed to print the book due to their charter, which explicitly states that they have the right to print all manner of books, effectively ignoring any copyright.

Cambyses

Cambyses II was a king of persia who stabbed himself to death when he mounted a horse while armed.

Merlin

There were two Merlins, and one was a wild man somewhat doomed/fated to live in the forest. The other was the famous Authurian half-demon wizzard.