Want to know what connects Richard III and Pablo Escobar? Yeah, they’re both historically notorious, and both killed a bunch of people whose bodies were never found. But also… (thread)

The Hispanic surname Escobar comes from the late Latin ‘scopa’, meaning broom. It meant you came from one of the Spanish towns named for being overgrown with thickets of plants in the Genisteae family (broom, gorse and laburnum are all considered ‘invasive plants’)

At first I thought it was an occupational surname meaning “a sweeper” but the funny thing is we only call them ‘brooms’ because people cut these branches to sweep with. The Germanic ‘broom’ displaced the Old English ‘besema’, which survives as the symbolic magical tool ‘besom’

Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy (1113–1151), unpopular in England because of his marriage to royal claimant the Empress Matilda, was nicknamed ‘Plante Geneste’ after this plant (cf. Genisteae) – or as we know him, Plantagenet

Geoff’s descendant Richard, 3rd Duke of York (1411–1460), decided to use Plantagenet as a surname. Both the York and Lancaster factions in the Wars of the Roses were Plantagenet cadet branches (hence the conflict over who got to rule England). More like the Wars of the Brooms!

Richard of York died in battle before he could become king, but two of his sons got the crown: Edward IV (1442–1483) and Richard III (1452–1485). Richard’s death ended the Plantagenet dynasty

So Pablo Escobar and Richard III basically had the same surname. Cheers