"Australia, Australia, Australia we love you! Amen!"
-Monty Python
Today is Australia Day. In Australia anyways. It'll be tomorrow in Canada but then it won't be Australia day in Australia anymore. Anyways, January 26 is Australia Day. I have no idea what happened on this particular day to make it Australia Day. However, in honour of the solemn occasion I've decided to put together some little known facts about Australia. My apologies for the length of this post. Consider it a test of your attention stamina. So, without (much) further adieu, here are some random, little known facts about Australia:
1) According to at least one source Australia is the worst emitter of CO
2 on the planet, per capita. One explanation for this is the consistently high standard of living which means cars and every other device that could possibly emit CO
2. Another explanation is the large number of coal mines in Australia. And yet another explanation is the national obsession with barbecues and grilling.
"Hey, want to go to the beach?"
"Sure, let's grill!"
"Hey, what do you want for dinner?"
"Let's grill something!"
"Do you want to go out for lunch before our meeting?"
"Sure, let's grill!"
You get the idea. But don't worry China, USA and Oilsands- I don't actually believe this statistic and I believe your crown is safe, if not a little dirty.
2) In 1838 it was declared illegal to swim at public beaches during the day! This law was enforced until 1902.
In 1903 the law was modified to state that it is illegal to swim with clothes on at public beaches during the day. From the period of 1903-1937 Australia saw a great influx of immigration, although oddly, 92% of the immigrants were young, single males. The law was later abolished when a government commisioned study found that the only people going to the beach were young, single, male immigrants wandering around aimlessly and muttering to themselves "where are they?"
3) In 1932, Francis De Groot, a retired cavalry officer, managed to get himself selected as part of the honour guard at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. When the ribbon was about to be cut, he galloped forward on his horse and slashed the ribbon with his sword, declaring the bridge open in the name of 'the decent citizens of New South Wales'.
The ribbon was then tied back together and the ceremony continued. De Groot was carried off to a mental hospital, declared insane and later fined for the replacement cost of one ribbon.
In 1938 De Groot ran for the Republican presidential nomination under the banner of 'mental health & stability'. He won the South Carolina primary.
4) In 1954, Bob Hawke was immortalised by the
Guinness Book of Records for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. Bob later became the Prime Minister of Australia. (This one is 100% true)
5) Australia was the 3rd country, after the US and Russia, to launch a satellite into orbit. It was for the British, using a 'Blue Streak' rocket.
The project, however, was quickly abandoned when they learned it was difficult to grill in space and beer had a tendency to float out of the bottle before you could finish it.
6) Convicts were not sent to Australia for serious crimes. Serious crimes, such as murder, rape, or impersonating an Egyptian were given the death sentence in England.
Crimes punishable by transportation included recommending that politicians get paid, starting a union, stealing fish from a river or pond, embezzlement, receiving or buying stolen goods, setting fire to underwood, petty theft, or being suspected of supporting Irish terrorism.
Other petty crimes, such as interupting someone when they're speaking, bumping into someone and not apologizing and cutting in line were punished by sending the perpetrator to Canada.
7) Australia's first police force was a band of 12 of the most well behaved Convicts.
The rest of the world admired this model and took it one step further. The most well behaved Convicts were put into government.
8) The Purple-neck Rock Wallaby [Petrogale Purpureicollis], inhabits the Mt Isa region in Northwest Queensland. The Wallaby secretes a dye that transforms its face and neck into colours ranging from light pink to bright purple.
It recently won the South Carolina primary for the Republican party.
9) The Wombat deposits square poos on logs, rocks and even upright sticks that it uses to mark its territory.
So, it could be said that the Wombat sh**s bricks.
10) Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Every Friday night thousands of Australians gather at the pubs and bars to try to emulate the emus and kangaroos in a nationwide contest to get on the Australian coat of arms. But they end up drinking so much they can't walk forwards or backwards or remember why they came out in the first place.
11) When a specimen of the platypus was first sent to England, it was believed the Australians had played a joke by sewing the bill of a duck onto a rat.
Turned out it was just Tony Blair.
12) The box jellyfish is considered the world's most venomous marine creature. The box jellyfish has killed more people in Australia than stonefish, sharks and crocodiles combined.
However, in total deaths it ranks a close thrid behind vehicular accidents and people that commit suicide due to the constant harassment of the flies.
13) The Sydney Funnelweb spider is considered the world's most deadly spider. It is the only spider that has killed people in less than 2 hours. Its fangs are powerful enough to bite through gloves and fingernails. The only animals without immunity to the funnelweb's venom are humans and monkeys.
If nothing else this proves that there is something to the theory of evolution. These spiders are clearly a 'missing link' in the evolutionary puzzle. They are the evolutionary middle between normal spiders that eat things like the G-- D--- flies!!! and the upcoming race of super-spiders that specifically target humans...and monkeys. Oh yeah, it also suggests that humans and monkeys may be somehow related.
I for one welcome our new uber-spiders overlords and remind them that a guy like me can be handy if they need to get stuff procured.
14) Mungo man - In 1974, scientists discovered the
Mungo man - a primate who was ritually buried 40-60,000 years ago with his hands covering his penis.
ANU's John Curtin School of Medical Research found that the skeleton's genetic material contained a small section of mitochondrial DNA. It was analysed and compared to the genetic material from nearly 3,500 people; including Neanderthals, Asians, ancient Aborigines, and present-day Aborigines. It was found that Mungo Man's DNA lacked a gene that was common to all the other samples. Consequently, unlike every other known person on the planet, or unearthed skeleton, Mungo man can not be traced to humans that left Africa any time in the last 200,000 years.
Some common traits of the Mungo man culture included:
- mullets
- dress shoes with sweat pants
- stained white sleeveless shirts
- the penchant for driving 74 Camaro's
- the common expression "Let's Go Oilers!"
15) During the Gold rush of the 1850's, Australia received massive waves of migration from China, America, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England. An Italian migrant named
'Raefello Carboni' subsequently led the
Eureka Rebellion.
The cause of the Eureka Rebellion was based on a misunderstanding. Several Italian migrants were standing around complaining about the weather and speaking excitedly. One of them accidently got poked in the eye by a flailing hand and this initiated a chain of events that eventually led to the rebellion. It has been estimated that 62% of all wars are started due to an Italian man talking with his hands.
16) In 1977, Alan Jones scored a surprise victory in the Austrian Grand Prix. Initially officials were going to play the Austrian anthem but then realised that Australia and Austria were not the same country. Unfortunately, they didn't have the Australian anthem so instead a local drunk played "Happy Birthday to You" on a trumpet.
To this day, Australians confuse their birthdays and Australia Day. But they get drunk on both days so they don't really care.
17) The Sydney Olympics were labelled the 'best ever games' by IOC president Juan Samaranch. What makes this a particularly sweet accolade for Australians is that they followed the Atlanta Olympics - staged by Americans.
Australians take great pride in upstaging Americans whenever possible. It is almost a national pasttime to try to one-up Americans. What many Australians seem to ignore is that Juan Samaranch calls every Olympics the 'best ever games'. Meanwhile, aproximately 80% of Americans think Australia is somewhere in central Europe.
18) A Sydney Australian football match was once stopped after fans smuggled a pig into the stadium, wrote the name of a big-boned player on the pig's side and then released it onto the ground.
The pig would later go on to be the head cheerleader for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
19) Because Sydney was founded by convicts and Melbourne was founded by the son of a convict it was determined a new capital was required. Because Sydney and Melbourne kept bickering over which city should be the capital of Australia, it was decided that neither of them would be capital and instead, a new capital, Canberra, would be built in the middle of them both.
Some of the highlights of things to do in Canberra include...um, uh...I'm sure there's something here. There's the uh... You could always, um... Every politician and federal government employee has regretted it every since.
20) Western Australia was the last Australian state to receive convicts.
Many of them went straight into politics or mining.
21) The 'dingo fence' in Australia is the longest fence in the world, and is about twice as long as the Great Wall of China.
This is uber-symbolic of Australia. In China they built the wall to keep out invading Mongel hoards. In Germany, they built the wall to seperate the capitalist West Berlin from communist East Berlin. In Australia, they build a fence to keep a dog out. Tells you just about everything you need to know about Australia.
22) The name Australia comes from the Latin
Terra Australis Incognito which means the
Unknown Southern Land.
The name Perth comes from the Latin
Terra Pertalis Singalito which means
We're So Far
Away From Everything Else on the Planet that we Might As Well be Alone On it.
23) The name for the Australian marsupial Kangaroo came about when some of the first white settlers saw this strange animal hopping along and they asked the Aborigines what it was called. They replied with
'Kanguru', which in the native language meant '
I don't know' .
The Aboriginals though this was hilarious, although, they couldn't take full credit as they saw the same thing happen the previous week on an episode of Three's Company.
24) The city of Melbourne has a cultural festival using the Aboriginal word
Moomba. It seems the festival's initial organisers asked the local Aborigines to suggest a name, and were told that moomba means 'lets get together and have fun.' The grateful organisers subsequently used the name.
In hindsight, the organisers really should have been suspicious that 'lets get together and have fun' could be expressed in two syllables. In reality, 'moom' means 'bum', 'buttocks', or 'anus', while the suffix 'ba' means 'in', 'at' or 'on'. So moomba actually means 'in the bum.'
And thus was born the long, rich tradition of the gay pride parade in Melbourne.
25) In 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia went for a swim at the beach and was never seen again. Theories about his disappearance include kidnapping by a Russian submarine, eaten by a shark or being carried away by the tide.
In a surprise development he was recently spotted in America and has been urged by the Republican party to run for President as he is clearly the most modern and progressive of the bunch.
26) In 1998, a huge engraving of an Aboriginal warrior appeared in the Australian outback. It was 4km long, held a throwing stick, was bearded and had a penis which was estimated to be 200m in length. The markings appeared to have been made by a tractor pulling some sort of plough which created furrows 10m wide in the difficult terrain. To this day, the artist is a mystery.
Ever since, every Australian man has claimed to have a penis 201m in length.
27) Australia was founded by Convicts. Its homicide rate is 1.8 per 100,000 population. The United States was founded by religious zealots. It's homicide rate is 6.3 per 100,000. Almost 400% greater than Australia.
28) For each person in Australia there are two sheep and over 16 rabbits, the latter introduced in 1859 by one enterprising man who brought 24 wild rabbits from England in an effort to remind him of home.
On the bright side, it gave the dingos something to eat. They were brought over in 7500 BC by one enterprising man who brough 24 wild dogs from Indonesia...
29) The sale of illegal cannabis industry constitutes 1 percent of Australia's GDP and is twice the size of the Australian wine industry.
There are so many users of illegal cannabis in Australia that the numbers are estimated to be in the range of the cannabis using population of one square block of an average suburb in Vancouver.
30) Per capita, Australians read more newspapers than any other nation.
In fact, further research has demonstrated that many Australians can't actually read but rather use the newspaper to shield themselves from the sun or to hide their bloodshot eyes due to the previous evenings festivities.
31) Per Capita, Australians spend more money on gambling than any other nation. In fact, with less than 1 percent of the world's population, Australia has more than 20 percent of its poker machines.
If gambling is a tax on the stupid then this would explain why Australia has been running a budget surplus for many years. The truth is that it's cheaper to gamble in the air conditioned establishments than it is to pay for air conditioning at home.
In true Australian fashion, I will leave it at 31 rather than leaving it at a nice round number. If you made it through the entire list congratulations! You are either not suffering from ADD or you are over the age of 24.
