Waterloo in Popular Culture - Other

Other

• In recognition of Napoleon's defeat, "to meet one's Waterloo" (or similar) has entered the English language as a phrase signifying a great test with a final and decisive outcome - generally one resulting in failure and proving vincibility for something or someone who had seemed unbeatable.
• The Waterloo Medal was issued to all ranks of the British Army who participated, including supposedly a baby born on the field to one unit's auxiliary woman aide. It was one of the first general medals issued. One can be seen with Wellington's uniform in the basement at Apsley House.
• When French President Jacques Chirac visited the UK to celebrate the centennial of the Entente Cordiale, the Waterloo Room in Windsor Castle was renamed the Music Room, and then renamed the Waterloo Room following Chirac's departure.
• The famous quote attributed to Wellington "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" was probably apocryphal. Unlike his older brother, Wellington was not an academic success at Eton; on one of his rare visits back there, the only athletic activities he could remember were skipping across a brook, and fisticuffs with a fellow student. See also Wikiquote.
• Jim DeMint, a Republican United States Senator of South Carolina, made a well-publicized comment during a conference call with conservative activists on July 17, 2009 in which he encouraged conservatives to go after President Barack Obama's Health Care Reform efforts, saying "f we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." In response, DeMint's Facebook fan page was spammed with hundreds of postings of the link to the YouTube video of Abba's Waterloo. After the passage of the health care reform bill, conservative pundit David Frum criticized the opposition strategy exemplified by DeMint's comment, saying, "it’s Waterloo all right: ours." Some liberal commentators claimed that it was his Waterloo, as DeMint predicted, but that Obama played the role of Wellington rather than Napoleon.