1. and 2. “The die is cast.” and “cross the Rubicon”  “The die is cast” was Julius Caesar’s famous remark on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his troops across the Rubicon River to start a civil war for control of the Roman Empire. This event also led to the idiom “to cross the Rubicon.” Both phrases are now commonly used as way of saying “pass the point of no return.” |
3. “Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”  Famous line spoken by the character Mortimer in the play Arsenic and Old Lace, which premiered on Broadway on January 10, 1941. (Cary Grant played Mortimer in the in the 1944 movie version.) |
4. “Doom and gloom, gloom and doom.”  Line said repeatedly by the Og the pessimistic leprechaun in the musical Finian’s Rainbow, which opened on Broadway on January 10, 1947. Though the words “doom and gloom” may have been used together previously, it was their use in this hit play that popularized them as a modern phrase. |
5. “45 RPM”  The term for the record format introduced by RCA on January 10, 1949. This soon became the standard format used for vinyl “singles” for several decades. (RPM stands for “revolutions per minute.”) |
| 6. “Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell. It’s down at the end of lonely street At Heartbreak Hotel.”  Lyrics from the song “Heartbreak Hotel,” recorded by Elvis Presley on January 10, 1956, in his first great recording session for RCA. It became his first No. 1 single and his first million selling record (a 45 RPM). |
7. “That Was the Week That Was.”  Title of the satirical Sixties TV show that first aired in America on January 10, 1964 and popularized the idiom “that was the [week/month/year/etc.] that was” in the U.S. The show was based on the earlier BBC version that began airing in the UK in 1962. |
| 8. “Uh, Breaker One-Nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck... Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy.”  Spoken words from the single record “Convoy,” by C.W. McCall, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on January 10, 1976. The recording helped popularize a number of CB (“Citizens’ Band”) radio slang phrases, including “breaker 1-9,” the CB slang phrase that a truck driver used used to tell other CB users he was ready to start talking. |
9. “Excedrin headache”  Phrase created for Excedrin ads and registered as a trademark by Bristol-Myers Company on January 10, 1978. In the ads, various headaches caused by different things were given numbers, such as “Excedrin headache number 24.” |
| 10. “We’ll leave the light on for you.”  Advertising slogan for Motel 6, originally ad-libbed by spokesman Tom Bodett in his first recording session for the company in 1986. It was later registered as a trademark by Motel 6 on January 10, 1989. |
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