Many of you may know of King Leonidas from 300, the bloody excellent film where he was portrayed by the rippling physique of Mr Gerard Butler. But did you know that Leonidas was in fact a real person?

Yes, King Leonidas from Record of Ragnarok truly reigned over Sparta in the early 400s BC. That whole story about the small troop of Spartans taking on thousands of Persians is no lie.

A friend of King Leonidas, the captain rallies 300 Spartan soldiers to fight the Persian army. After his son Astinos is killed in battle with the Persians, the captain breaks rank and kills ...

9. Ephialtes - 300 Warner Bros. In this 2006 adaptation of Frank Miller's historically inspired comic-book series, King Leonidas of Sparta and his army of 300 go on a jolly romp around Greece ...

Leonidas, king of Sparta, commanded the ground forces at Thermopylae: 300 members of his royal Spartan bodyguard, called the hippeis—the subjects of countless books, movies, poems, and songs ...

In August 480 B.C. the Spartan King Leonidas together with his most fierce warriors faced the Persian army. Outnumbered and against all the odds, geology helped in the last stand of the 300.