William Tell

Tell, William, legendary 14th-century Swiss hero. Ordered by the Austrian bailiff Gessler to bow to a hat on a pole as a symbol of Austrian supremacy, he refused and was forced to shoot an apple from his son's head, using a cross-bow; in this almost impossible task he succeeded. Later he killed Gessler, starting a revolt that overthrew the bailiffs. The story was the basis of a drama by Friedrich von Schiller and an opera by Giacomo Rossini in the early 19th century.