Die hard (phrase)
Die hard is a phrase coined by Lieutenant-Colonel William Inglis of the 57th (West Middlesex) Regiment of Foot during the Battle of Albuera.[1] The term was later used to deride several senior officers of the Army who sought to maintain the system bequeathed to them by the Duke of Wellington and who strenuously resisted military reforms enacted by Parliament starting in the late 1860s.In British politics the adjective "die-hard" (best written with a hyphen) was first used to describe those who, during the crisis caused by the Lords' rejection of David Lloyd George's "People's Budget" of 1909, refused to accept the diminution of the House of Lords' powers by the Parliament Act 1911, and who generally held right wing views, most notably Richard Verney, 19th Baron Willoughby de Broke.[3] It was later revived to describe a grouping of members of the Conservative Party in the 1930s, including Henry Page Croft who had been prominent among both the earlier die-hards, who amongst other things refused to accept any moves towards Indian independence.The term is now commonly used to describe any person who will not be swayed from a belief, and was used as the title of the popular action movie series Die Hard, all starring Bruce Willis as police officer John McClane.