Pride Goeth Before the Swollen Chest and Head

I was watching Antiques Roadshow with the Wife the other day, one of the appraisees was there with a painting they wanted looked at by the appraiser, and the story they told made me reflect for a bit:

As a person of German descent (and citizenship, for that matter,) I have to tell you my sense of pride in my heritage puffs up a little bigger every time a sentence at the beginning of a story ends with:

"...because the Germans were coming..."

Listen for it, it's one of the most popular phrases in all of history and historiography... from the Roman Empire through today, it's still as good as it ever was.  Well, today being defined as "sometime in the 20th century", but still.  It's even in Casablanca, can you ask for more than that?

The number of phrases for which it can be used as a closer are nearly limitless:

"This was hidden in a cellar..."

"We drank all the wine we had left..."

"The archives were burned..."

"The able-bodied men all hid in the mountains..."

"Gasoline stores were set to the torch..."

You can play the home game version of this...