The Acciaioli, Acciaiuoli, or Acciajuoli was an important family of Florence.

Family name is also written Acciaioli, Acciainoli, or Accioly and Accioli in Portugal and Brazil, where there are branches of it. Descent can be traced in an unbroken line from one Gugliarello Acciaioli in the 12th century; family legend says that Gugliarello (a name possibly derived from It. guglia, needle) migrated from Brescia to Florence in 1160 because they were Guelphs and fled Barbarossa's invasion of Northern Italy. The Acciaioli founded a powerful bank in the 13th century (Compagna di Ser Leone degli Acciaioli e de' suoi consorti) which had branches from Greece to Western Europe. Bishop Angiolo Acciaioli briefly ruled Florence in the mid-14th century after the deposition of Gauthier de Brienne. Later they associated themselves to the Albizzi and then to the elder Medici in the 15th century. From about 1390 to 1460 they ruled the Duchy of Athens and kept close ties with the younger branch of the Medici through the marriage of Laudomia Acciaioli to Pierfrancesco de' Medici, from which the later Grand Dukes of Tuscany are descended, as well as several royal houses.

Michael Martin Murphey (born March 14, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter best known for writing and performing Western music, Country music, and Popular music. A multiple Grammy nominee, Murphey has six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins in 1959. He has recorded the hit singles "Wildfire", "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "A Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", and "Don't Count the Rainy Days". Murphey is also the author of New Mexico's state ballad, "The Land of Enchantment". Murphey has become a prominent musical voice for the Western horseman, rancher, and cowboy.

Michael Martin Murphey was born on March 14, 1945 in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, Texas, the son of Pink and Lois (Corbett) Murphey. He grew up in Dallas, Texas. His love of the outdoors began at an early age when his parents took him and his brother Mark (who was three years Michael's junior) on regular trips to the country to visit relatives. When he was six years old, Murphey started riding horses on his grandfather's and uncle's ranches. Years later he would remember sleeping on his grandfather's porch under the stars listening to the older man's stories and cowboy songs. He also enjoyed being around these men of the land as they went about their work. These experiences made a deep impression on the young boy.

Dark horse is a term used to describe a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed.

The term began as horse racing parlance. A dark horse is a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.

The earliest-known use of the phrase is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

The term has been used politically in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.

Politically, the term reached America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.