“To beard the lion in his den” is a phrase dating back to the first Book of Samuel in the Bible, which tells the story of David, a shepherd who pursued a lion that had stolen one of his sheep.  Long story short, David bravely seized the lion “by his beard” (chin whiskers) and slew him.  The “in his den” detail most likely came from another Bible story, that of Daniel cast into a lions’ den and saved by an angel.  Put together, “to beard the lion in his den” was an established idiom by Roman times meaning “to confront a dangerous opponent directly; to defy or challenge an adversary on his own ground,” with at least some degree of success.  Today the phrase is often shortened to “beard someone in his own den” or just “to beard” with reference to a non-den locale.  (“Shall that English silkworm presume to beard me in my father’s house?”, Sir Walter Scott, 1820).  Although we usually encounter “beard” as a noun, it’s also been used as a verb since the 15th century, originally in the obvious, but now strangely obsolete, sense of “to grow a beard” (“Lewis, King of Hungary … was said … to have bearded at fifteen,” 1672).  “To beard” meaning “to resolutely defy or oppose” has been commonly used in English since the early 16th century, often with no reference to lions.  Part of this use of “to beard” reflects the use of the noun “beard” to mean “face” since the 14th century in such phrases as “to say something to an opponent’s beard,” meaning directly to his face.  http://www.word-detective.com/2010/07/beard-to/   

The Walls of Jericho in Jackson County, Alabama, is being called “The Grand Canyon of the South.”  More than 10,000 hikers, amateur photographers, birdwatchers and horseback riders have explored this natural marvel since it opened in August 2004. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley officially dedicated the area in April 2005.  In the late 1700s, Davy Crockett explored the area since his family owned land there.  A traveling minister came upon the Walls of Jericho in the late 1800s and was so captivated by the cathedral-like beauty that he declared it needed a biblical name and the name stuck.  Today, visitors continue to be drawn to the grandeur of the narrow gorge.  You can travel to the bottom of its 50-yard-wide limestone bowl and look up at 200-foot-tall cliffs on each side.  In a heavy rain, water shoots out of holes and cracks in the rock.  The gorge is just one piece of The Walls of Jericho tract, which was purchased by the State of Alabama’s Forever Wild Land Trust, with the help of The Nature Conservancy in 2004, as part of its mandate to acquire land for public use.  https://www.outdooralabama.com/news/release.cfm?ID=322

The Walls of Jericho site is designated as a Tennessee State Natural Area.  The entire 8,900-acre area is open for public access.  http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/tennessee/placesweprotect/walls-of-jericho.xml

Pyrenees, Spanish Pirineos, French Pyrénées, Catalan Pireneus,   mountain chain of southwestern Europe that consists of flat-topped massifs and folded linear ranges.  It stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic Ocean on the west.  The Pyrenees form a high wall between France and Spain that has played a significant role in the history of both countries and of Europe as a whole.  The range is some 270 miles (430 kilometres) long; it is barely six miles wide at its eastern end, but at its centre it reaches some 80 miles in width.  At its western end it blends imperceptibly into the Cantabrian Mountains along the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.  Except in a few places, where Spanish territory juts northward or French southward, the crest of the chain marks the boundary between the two countries, though the tiny, autonomous principality of Andorra lies among its peaks.  The highest point is Aneto Peak, at 11,169 feet (3,404 metres), in the Maladeta (Spanish: “Accursed”) massif of the Central Pyrenees.  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/484820/Pyrenees

Films about chess  Find links to 24 pages on films, including Chess Fever, a 1925 Soviet silent comedy film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nikolai Shpikovsky.  Chess Fever is a comedy about the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, made by Pudovkin during the pause in the filming of Mechanics of the Brain.  The film combines acted parts with the actual footage from the tournament.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_about_chess  See also http://www.imdb.com/list/tzq2iuzS4Pc/ and http://chesscraft.blogspot.com/2011/10/movies-about-chess.html

Chess became a source of inspiration in the arts in literature soon after the spread of the game to the Arab World and Europe in the Middle Ages.  The earliest works of art centered around the game are miniatures in medieval manuscripts, as well as poems, which were often created with the purpose of describing the rules.  After chess gained popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries, many works of art related to the game were created.  One of the most well-known, Marco Girolamo Vida's Scaccia ludus, written in 1527, made such an impression on the readers, that it single handedly inspired other authors to create poems about chess.  In the 20th century, artists created many works related to the game, sometimes taking their inspiration from the life of famous players (Vladimir Nabokov in The Defense) or well-known games (Paul Anderson in Immortal Game, John Brunner in The Squares of the City).  Some authors invented new chess variants in their works, such as stealth chess in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series or Tri-Dimensional chess in the Star Trek series.  See lists and images at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_in_the_arts_and_literature 

Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans.  If castor beans are chewed and swallowed, the released ricin can cause injury.  Ricin can be made from the waste material left over from processing castor beans.  It can be in the form of a powder, a mist, or a pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid.  It is a stable substance under normal conditions, but can be inactivated by heat above 80 degrees centigrade (176 degrees Fahrenheit).  Castor beans are processed throughout the world to make castor oil.  Ricin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made.  Ricin has been used experimentally in medicine to kill cancer cells.  Learn how to protect yourself and what to do if exposed to ricin at:  http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp

Pseudonyms and fictional people

G. W. Peck, pseudonym used by several mathematicians since 1979  P. D. Q. Bach, a fictional composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele  Piotr Zak, nonexistent Polish composer, created for a BBC programme by Hans Keller and others  Lemony Snicket, pseudonym of Daniel Handler and character in Handler/"Snicket"'s Series of Unfortunate Events 
Betty Crocker, fake spokesperson for The Washburn Crosby Company of Minneapolis and its successor company, General Mills  Silence Dogood, a false persona used by Benjamin Franklin to get his work published.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictitious_people

More Pseudonyms

El Greco (Dominikos Theotokópulos)  Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)  Marc Chagall (Moishe Shagal)  Anne Rice (Real name: Howard Allen O'Brien.  Other aliases: Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure)  Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum)  Daniel Defoe (Daniel Foe)  Diedrich Knickerbocker (Washington Irving)  Douglas Spaulding (Ray Bradbury)   Doctor A (Isaac Asimov)  Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)  Ed McBain (Evan Hunter, born as Salvatore A. Lombino)  Harold Robbins (Harold Rubin)  George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)  George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)  George Sand (Amandine Dupin)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pseudonyms 

E.L. Konigsburg, who was one of the few children's authors to twice win the Newbery Medal, died April 19, 2013 in Falls Church, Va.  She was 83.  She won the Newbery Medal, one of the top honors for children's literature, in 1968 for the book "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" and again in 1997 for "The View from Saturday."  Her first book, "Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth" was also a Newbery honor book in 1968 but lost out to "Mrs. Frankweiler" — making her the only author to be a winner and runner-up in the same year.  "Mrs. Frankweiler" was adapted for the 1973 film "The Hideaways," which starred Ingrid Bergman in the story of an 11-year-old who hides out with her brother after hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Lauren Bacall also played Mrs. Frankweiler in a 1995 TV movie.  Konigsburg wrote 16 children's novels and illustrated three picture books, according to her family.  http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-el-konigsburg-20130423,0,3926544.story  See also:  http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/literature/2013-04-21/story/newbery-medal-winning-writer-artist-el-konigsburg-dies-83