A Comm for Historymemes

Context: Vasiliy Arkhipov was a staff officer on a Russian submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After several days of no communication from Moscow, the submarine's three senior officers voted to launch a nuclear torpedo at American ships, assuming that war had already begun and Moscow had fallen. Vasiliy voted against it and since they could not form a unanimous vote the torpedo was not launched. It's widely speculated that if the torpedo were to be launched, thermonuclear war was extremely likely to follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tz_von_Berlichingen_(Goethe)

The first version of the drama included a quote that gained fame fast. In the third act, Götz is under siege by the Imperial Army in his castle at Jagsthausen. The captain of the army asked him to surrender; from a window, he gives his answer:

Mich ergeben! Auf Gnad und Ungnad! Mit wem redet Ihr! Bin ich ein Räuber! Sag deinem Hauptmann: Vor Ihro Kaiserliche Majestät hab ich, wie immer, schuldigen Respekt. Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsch lecken!

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand, act 3, Goethe's Werke, vol. 8 (1889), p. 109 It can be translated as:

Me, surrender! At mercy! With whom do you speak? Am I a robber! Tell your captain that for His Imperial Majesty, I have, as always, due respect. But he, tell him that, he can lick me in the arse!

Goethe based this passage on the autobiography of the historical Götz, who records himself as saying (in a different context) "er solte mich hinden lecken" ("He can lick me on the behind").[3] (In reality, the besieger was Götz himself.)