inner dork and word origin, in one: no man's-land

Did you know....

The phrase, 'no man's-land' comes from the Middle Ages. There was an actual no-man's-land, located outside the north wall of the city of London. This is the area where the bodies of criminals were displayed and since relatively minor crimes were then punishable by death, there were lots of bodies displayed which had been hung, beheaded, impaled of which served as a warning for other would-be lawbreakers.
Eventually the land around London was settled. Game preserves were established and the fields were cultivated, the only land that no man wanted were the former execution lands. Literally, no man wanted this land and that became the phrase to discribe this area.

Around 1900 the phrase was picked up by the military.

Now, if only we knew where the phrase, BFE came from. (Bum-fuck-Egypt)