Though not many people know this, King Kong is based on a true story.
Alexander Hamilkong was the King Regent of a small Indonesian isle known colloquially as Pulau Tengkorak, or "Skull Island." In the late nineteenth century, merchants from the West journeyed to Indonesia seeking trade opportunities. One such merchant was Karl Dennam of Germany.
Karl and his crew of Das Abenteur got lost during a storm, ending up hundreds of miles off course. With the crew threatening mutiny, Karl angled the ship toward the only hope of land: a foggy island not known to any map.
This ended up being the first instance of the West reaching Pulau Tengkorak. Karl and his crew ran afoul of the locals, as they had no translator to speak of. In the fighting, Karl's niece Hannah was captured and held ransom by the King Regent, Alekan Hemakong.
The second-in-command of Karl's vessel was a young sailor and writer named Jerry Dreisolff. Jerry had fallen for young Hannah, and he took the fight to the natives. With a small group of sailors, he rescued Hannah from her capture, enraging King Hemakong.
In the ensuing battle, many natives and sailors died in brutal combat. At the end of the third day, Karl and his crew emerged victorious, dragging "King Kong" from his throne and taking him as a captive. They returned to the West, to Germany, and paraded the King as a war trophy.
But it came to be known that Hannah, while held by Hemakong, had fallen for the monarch. She petitioned his release, which started a riot in the Fatherland. In the violence, Hemakong was killed and the story seemed to end. Hannah was never seen again. Some say she ran off with Jerry Dreisolff. Some say she took her own life after losing her lover. Others say she returned to Pulau Tengkorak to be named the Queen.
Karl wrote all of this in his memoirs years after. When he died, his estate went to his godson Waylan Cooper. Waylan was inspired to write a version of the story for American audiences, so he changed the names of the characters. Karl became Carl Denham. Jerry became Jack Driscoll. Hemakong became Alexander Hamilkong.
Waylan passed the story to his daughter, Merien C. Cooper, who turned the whole thing into a script about a filmmaker and a giant monkey (things were super racist pretty much all the time back then...and sadly now as well).
Anyway, none of that was true, but here's a song for ya'll.
Alexander Hamilkong