"No Man's Land"

During the middle ages, no man's land was located outside the north wall of the city of London, where criminals were displayed. Since even minor crimes were punishable by death, there were plenty of bodies--hanged, beheaded, impaled--to serve as a warning for others.
Eventually, a gallows was built inside the city proper. Years passed, and all around London land was settled and fields were cultivated--except for the former execution grounds, which were claimed by no man. No man's land was the term used to describe the area, and only later, around 1900, was the phrase picked up in military parlance.

"The Three Musketeers"

  They came from the mind of Alexander Dumas the Elder. He wrote the novel The Three Musketeers in 1884. The setting is 17th-century France, and the musketeers-- Athos, Porthos, and Aramis-- are swordsmen who serve King Louis XIII. Together they defeat Cardinal Richelieu in his plot to embarass the royal family. The confusion about whether the musketeers were real arises because Louis XIII and Richelieu did indeed exist. But like many authors, Dumas used historical figures as foils for his fictional characters.

"Maven"

Mavens pop up all the time on the tube. The airwaves are alive with fashion mavens, wine mavens and, of course, media mavens. Maven is Yiddish for "expert," but keep in mind that the word is often used sarcastically:  "Baseball mavens predicted the end of the strike this week, but the mavens struck out."

Liberals to the left and Conservatives to the right, Why?

In 1789 the First French National Assembly convened after the Revolution. The assembly was packed with 1177 deputies. As it happened, the liberal or radical members were seated to the left of the speaker, and the conservative members to the right. The practice spread, and the terms left wing and right wing are still used around the world to denote the two political beliefs,
liberalism and conservatism.

The difference between a gourmet and a gourmand is?

  Discretion. Pickiness. Taste. Knowledge. Put simply, a gourmet is a conoisseur of fine food and wine; a gourmand is one step short of a glutton- "one who is excessively fond of eating and drinking."