History NewerThanTheyThink / Settings

* A building didn't exist on the present site of Buckingham Palace until 1703 and then it was, appropriately enough, the home of the Duke of Buckingham. In 1761, George III purchased it as a private residence for his wife, Queen Charlotte. Under George IV, the building was converted into a palace. It wasn't until the ascension of Queen Victoria in 1837 that Buckingham Palace became the official residence of the British monarch -- that's thirty-seven years ''after'' the White House became the official residence of the U.S. president. The façade of Buckingham Palace, including the famous balcony from which the royals wave at crowds, was first built in the 1840s and remodeled in 1913.

* People tend to assume that the existence of the Vatican City State as the world's smallest country (with its largest church as guidebooks like to point out) goes back centuries. It makes sense, since Rome's ancient and so is the Vatican. Actually though, the Lateran Treaty establishing the Vatican's present borders was signed by Mussolini in 1929. The Pope ''was'' the temporal ruler of a (much larger) territory from the 8th century to its annexation by the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, generally referred to in historiography as the "Papal State", or on contemporary maps as the "States of the Church"; the core territory stretched across the middle of Italy, covering roughly the regions of Lazio, Umbria and Marche.[[note]]The Italian annexation of the Papal State was a two-step process; during the unification in the early 1860s the nascent Italian state annexed Umbria and Marche, leaving a rump Papal State coterminous with the modern-day Lazio region and protected by Napoleon III. When he recalled his troops protecting the Papal State to fight the Prussians in 1870, the Italians seized the opportunity and marched on Rome.[[/note]] During the 59-year interim, five successive Popes holed themselves up in the Vatican and refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy. Mussolini came to a deal with Pope Pius XI in hopes of securing support for his fascist regime by the still-powerful and influential Catholic Church, a legacy which remains controversial.[[note]]In 1870, the Italian conquerors had offered to allow then-Pope Pius IX to remain sovereign over the Leonine City - a territory roughly double the size of the modern-day Vatican - but he refused.[[/note]]

* It's well-known that the Hollywood Sign originally said HOLLYWOODLAND, but the "LAND" was part of the sign during practically all of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, not getting removed until 1949.

* Heathrow Airport was called London Airport until 1966, when it was renamed to avoid confusion with other airports in the London area.

* Many names of specific regions in American states were cooked up in the last century or so for commercial purposes, especially attracting tourism. The area around Springfield, Massachusetts was only first dubbed the Pioneer Valley in the 1920s. Per Website/{{Wikipedia}}, the area around Boise, Idaho adopted the Treasure Valley as a name in 1959 "to reflect the treasure chest of resources and opportunities that the region offered." The Emerald Coast in the Florida Panhandle has a name that emerged from a 1983 contest, with the winning entry coined by a teen who won $50 for it.

* Considering how long some hotel brands such as Holiday Inn, Hilton, Marriott, Howard Johnson's, etc. have been around, one would think that most other hotel chains are of similar vintage, but this is not the case. For instance: Baymont Inn (1973 as Budgetel; renamed in 1999), Drury Inn (1973), Super 8 (1974, but still largely limited to the Upper Midwest until TheNineties), Hampton Inn (1984), [=AmericInn=] (1984), and Microtel (1989). Newer still are America's Best Value (1999) and Magnuson (2003), both of which grew [[StartMyOwn almost entirely by rebranding other properties]] (mostly de-