A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Simone Biles has made history again. This weekend, the seven-time Olympic medalist landed an eye-popping, spinning, twisting vault at the Gymnastics World Championships in Belgium.
(CHEERING)
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The vault was known as the Yurchenko double pike, but because Biles was the first to land it in international competition, it will now be known as the Biles two. By the way, that's in addition to four other gymnastics skills already named after her. But you don't have to be an Olympian for your name to go down in history.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GAS STATION NACHOS")
CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER: (Singing) I love the nachos. Gas station nachos. I love those nachos. Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: Who wouldn't? In 1943, a group of military wives were treated to an impromptu snack at a restaurant in Piedras Negras, a small Mexican city just across the Texas border. That's where Ignacio Anaya Garcia cut up and fried some tortillas, covered them with shredded cheese and peppers, and then tossed it into the oven. And since Nacho is a common abbreviation for Ignacio, the rest, as they say, is history.
FADEL: I love nachos. But if your nachos go down the wrong way, you can give thanks to Henry Heimlich. In the 1970s, the Cincinnati doctor developed a life-saving technique to prevent choking. The Heimlich maneuver involves pushing on a person's abdomen, forcing air up the windpipe and ejecting the obstruction.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALWAYS REMEMBER US THIS WAY")
LADY GAGA: (Singing) So when I'm all choked up and I can't find the words...
MARTÍNEZ: Now, if you ever been called a dunce - that's pretty much my middle name - it's because of John Duns Scotus, who was not, in fact, slow or dimwitted. He was an influential medieval scholar and theologian who believed cone-shaped hats symbolized wisdom, but his teachings were ridiculed during the Renaissance, and his followers with their Duns caps began to be seen as stupid.
FADEL: And in politics, if you get Borked, it has nothing to do with the Swedish chef from "The Muppet Show."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE MUPPET SHOW")
BILL BARRETTA: (As Swedish Chef, vocalizing).
FADEL: Getting Borked is actually a reference to the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in the 1980s. Democrats, including Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, aggressively attacked Bork's conservative background and legal theories.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED KENNEDY: In Robert Bork's America, there is no room at the inn for Blacks and no place in the Constitution for women. And in our America, there should be no seat on the Supreme Court for Robert Bork.
MARTÍNEZ: Democrats defeated the Bork nomination, which helped turn his name into a verb, proving that going down in history is not all it's cracked up to be.
(SOUNDBITE OF HACKNEY COLLIERY BAND'S "GTFA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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