It came up in another topic earlier that Skyrim is stuffed to the gills with references to history, popular culture and previous Elder Scrolls games. 
 
My personal favorite so far is the character "Temba Wide-Arm". The character's name is a reference to a memorable episode of Star Trek: TNG 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok 

 As night falls, Picard fails to make a fire and Captain Dathon shares his fire with the phrase "Temba, his arms wide".

"let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll" is a reffrence to the begining alignment questions in morrowind, where it would ask you what you would do if the school bully stole your sweet roll.

There's a Star Wars reference in one of the ice caves.

@CL60 said:

There's a Star Wars reference in one of the ice caves.

What is it?

Just googled. Pretty awesome!

@Hector said:

@CL60 said:

There's a Star Wars reference in one of the ice caves.

What is it?

A skeleton hanging from the roof of the cave with a glowing sword beneath it.

The ghost of a headless horseman randomly appears on the road at night.

The Notched Pick-axe ontop of Throat of the World.

I climbed to the very top of the Throat of the World or whatever it is (the mountain High Hrothgar is on) and found an item called the Notched Pickaxe which I assume is a reference to the whole Minecraft/Notch/Scrolls legal issue.

There's a note in one of the earliest caves, that's a subtle reference to Acquisitions Inc.

@daftdethmonkey said:

I climbed to the very top of the Throat of the World or whatever it is (the mountain High Hrothgar is on) and found an item called the Notched Pickaxe which I assume is a reference to the whole Minecraft/Notch/Scrolls legal issue.

Notched Pickaxe has been in earlier games.

I took an arrow to the knee is a reference to morrowind.

@Xolare:Very few people know this and so people keep pointing to "OMG TIS A MINECRAFT REFERENCE!" but yeah it has.I guess Notch's name is just a coincidence.

@Dagbiker:  
How so? I thought it was a reference to the removal of greaves. 
 
@Xolare: 
 Yep. It's probably a reference to the pickaxe they found on top of Mt. Everest.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned it, but the "Hrothgar" in "High Hrothgar" is a reference to King Hrothgar of Beowulf. He's the one that tasks the hero with killing Grendel and, eventually, Grendel's mother. Skyrim is brimming with references to Anglo-Saxon and Germanic culture.

Skyrim has quite a few somewhat interesting pop culture references. Here's a comprehensive list : http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Easter_Eggs

If any of you have played world of warcraft it's filled with this kind of shit : http://www.wowwiki.com/List_of_pop_culture_references_in_Warcraft/All

In my opinion; the difference is when blizzard does it it's frequently funny, memorable or awesome. Bethesda has a habit of picking up pop culture references that are either very obscure or stuff very few people care about or remember; or just flat out BORING.

@Dagbiker said:

"let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll" is a reffrence to the begining alignment questions in morrowind, where it would ask you what you would do if the school bully stole your sweet roll.

IIRC the sweet roll has populated Bethesda games even before Morrowind (Arena, Daggerfall, etc.). It also makes appearances in Fallout 3.