• Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images
    3 of 10

    DROP THAT HALBERD AND STEP AWAY FROM THE PLATE MAIL, M’LORD

    The English Parliament has always been a more fractious legislative body than most, especially in the early days when it was less of a democratic organization and more of an uneasy alliance of armed cattle barons.

    To lessen the chances of a parliamentary throw-down, shrewd King Edward II (who also came up with the Royal Fish law) proclaimed the wearing of armor to Parliament illegal in 1313. The statute remains official British law and has yet to be challenged, perhaps as a guard against unusually bitter sessions of Parliamentary Question Time.