Riding Shotgun

Today I decided to discover why we have the term "shotgun" for the passenger seat of the car. I figured it had something to do with the passenger offering protection to the driver back in the cowboy days. Well, it has it's origins there, as in the 'idea' comes from the stagecoach era, but the term came from Hollywood's interpretation of the Old West. Go figure.

Here's an interesting history , and here's Wikpedia's entry, with some of the more modern connotations