My favorite unit of measurement is the Mille Helen.

Helen, as you'll recall, was the beauty who ran off with Paris to the city of Troy,

prompting her jilted husband Melaneus, King of Sparta, to rally soldiers and allies

and set sail with Odysseus and Achilles and scores of heroes across the sea

to the shores of Ilium there to lay siege

to that ancient city.

Once Odysseus and his men snuck in,

the Greeks destroyed it.

Fought an entire war, thousands dead, thousands more, kept from their families for years,

all culminating with one of the great cities of the world, perhaps the greatest Troy, burned to the ground.

All that death, destruction, untold misery, blood and fire, all that. Because Helen ran off with Paris, and

Melaneus wanted to bring his bride home. In 1604 Shakespeare's contemporary, Christopher Marlow, wrote a play called

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, in which Faustus communes with the dead and raises, among others,

the spirit of Helen of Troy, who is so captivating, so utterly beautiful and irresistible, rather than let her long departed spirit

return to the underworld, Faustist makes her his paramour and is forever damned, carried off to hell to be with her.

In the play, Faustus says, was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the

topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

That's now the line best associated with Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships.

So a milla Helen, to go back to units of measurement,

would be one thousandth of a full Helen,

whereas one Helen is hot enough to launch a thousand

ships, a milla Helen is hot enough to get one guy with a boat to come get her.

...