During World War II, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) played the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in each of its European broadcasts. Why? Its familiar opening ("duh-duh-duh-DUUUH") closely mimics the Morse code for the letter V (dot-dot-dot-dash) -- the symbol adopted to represent "Victory".

[The white-breasted wood wren of Mexico sings the same well-known phrase from Beethoven's Fifth. The curator of ornithology at the California Academy of Sciences (Luis Baptista) once played a recording of the wren at a scientific convention. "The overflow crowd [burst] out in giddy, slightly incredulous laughter." Several birders also have observed that the European blackbird sings the opening to the rondo of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D; Beethoven apparently borrowed it.]