On this date of December 2 in 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The 35-year-old Napoleon put the crown on his own head after receiving the crown from Pope Pius VII.
Napoleon I ruled a vast empire for a number of years before he began to encounter military defeats in 1812. Currently, one of his coded letters of an order against the Russians that year is up for auction. Anyway, after a major defeat in 1814, he returned from exile the following year but his army fell to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon lived out the rest of his life under house arrest on Saint Helena off the coast of Africa, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51, probably of stomach cancer.
Almost 200 years later in 2004, another Napoleon was king of the oddball comedies on screen, Napoleon Dynamite (2004). Although the film initially received mixed reviews and was given a limited release, it went on to become one of the iconic films with some of the most memorable quotes of the last decade. The Idaho legislature even passed a resolution praising the film. The odd story of the outcast teenager created a memorable character played by Jon Heder, who revived his portrayal of the character to deliver a humorous Top Ten list of “Signs You’re Not the Most Popular Guy in Your High School” on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Bonus Trivia: The name “Napoleon Dynamite” was first used as a pseudonym by Elvis Costello as early as 1982, but the movie’s co-writer and directer Jared Hess states that he came up with the name independently.
What is your favorite part of Napoleon Dynamite? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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