It is amazing how many historical incidents involve apples. These few thumbnail sketches

and descriptions do not even begin to list those apple things in . . .

Sir Isaac Newton William Tell The Romans, et al

How do you discover gravity?
  Sir Isaac Newton        

Did an apple really fall on Isaac Newton's  head, before he was a Sir that is?

Alas, probably not. However, a falling apple is credited with inspiring this famous English mathematician in formulating the laws of gravity. 

Today, it may be difficult for us to realize the significance Newton placed in the simple act of an apple falling from a tree. After all, we take Newton's scientific legacy for granted in the twenty-first century while Newton and his contemporaries theorized and argued about such matters during the seventeenth century.

In 1665, Newton returned to his home in Lincolnshire when Trinity College closed its doors because of the Plague. He remained in Lincolnshire until 1667. During this short period of time, Newton made great advances in mathematics as well as in optics and mechanics.

When Newton contemplated his orchard juxtaposed with the rising moon, he saw not just an apple falling but also a force drawing the apple to the ground. Then he asked, could this same force draw the moon to its orbit around the earth?

In order to answer this question, this amazing genius first had to develop a new math--calculus!

This very  interesting web site on Sir Isaac Newton has lots of great links, such as this link.

You can also find information on Newton at Encarta.
 

How is your aim?
  William Tell     

Did William Tell really shoot an apple poised on someone's head?

You have heard the famous music: Gioacchino Rossini's The William Tell Overture. This opera is about the legendary, 14th century Swiss patriot said to have shot an arrow through an apple perched 

 on his son's head!

Tell was forced into this reckless act by an Austrian ruler riding roughshod over the Swiss. Tell's actions inspired the ensuing uprising which resulted in Swiss independence and the beginning of this historic legend.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von

Schiller wrote in his 1804 dramatic work:

This feat of Tell, the archer, will be told/While yonder mountains stand upon their base./By heaven! The apple's cleft right through the core.

—wiLHELM tell

wiLHELM tell by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller is available in etext through Project Gutenberg

Et tu Brutus?

  The Roman Empire   

Did Caesar like apples?

You bet he did. Not only did the Caesars enjoy apples but their troops also enjoyed them. While the Roman Legions marched north, changing history and influencing cultures, they also left apple trees in their wake. As they consumed their apples, the conquering troops tossed the apple cores to the ground. Many of the apple seeds sprouted and grew into trees throughout Europe.
  et al   

Of course the Romans were not the only early civilization to thrive on apples.  The Greeks, for example, were also fond of apples. A brief account of the value of golden apples is under "Fairy Tales, Legends, and Myths," at Hercules.

At the opposite pole, or there 'bouts, Swiss Lake dwellers of 6000 BC dined on apples. During more recent history,  Peter Gunnarson Rambo carried apple seeds from Sweden to America in 1640. Johnny Appleseed took seeds from the fruit of Rambo's trees to grow in the American frontier of the early 1800s.