Interesting Facts about Argentina

[perry]

http://interestingfactsabout.blogspot.com/2009/07/argentina-is-beautiful-country.html

Argentina is a beautiful country. Here are some useful and interesting facts about this beautiful country.

Argentina is one of the leading producers of wines ever since the 16th century and has approximately 1800 wineries currently.

Did you know that Argentina has taken part in the Pan American Games 14 times in a go! They in fact won 247 gold medals too! Argentina now has more medals than some other adjoining countries united.

The tallest mountain in Argentina is called "Aconcagua".

There are 7 countries in the world that have a bigger land volume as compared to Argentina. Those countries are the enormous Canada, Russia, China, U.S, Australia, Brazil and India.

Argentina went through a lot of turbulence in government. So much so that they announced something called a "Dirty War", to re-establish regulation and eradicate antagonists.

Opposing to typecast, Argentines are not by preponderance, Hispanic in spite of talking Spanish. Most are of Italian, German, Welsh backdrop. A diminutive percentage is from Spain.

There is one fun fact that has some shady mystery and is more apt for a Halloween story. There used to be a duck in Argentina that was called "The Argentinean Vampire Duck"! It is believed that this duck has the tendency of taking off lice from other ducks and Christian missionaries according to the grapevine thought that was an act of vampirism!

Argentine Spanish is referred to as Lunfardo and has larger similitude to Italian than the Mexican Spanish that Americans are accustomed to.

Argentina is the 3rd biggest producer of beef in the world.

Argentine women go through the maximum number of plastic surgeries in the world, per person. Argentina is perhaps the world's most looks-conscious country in the world, and more than 30% of its women undergo some form of eating disarray.

Argentina's weather is in reality pretty chilly, with about twenty percent arctic not what one would anticipate from South America.

Argentines seem to be congenitally scared of spices. The huge part of the food is beef and vegetables with a plain sauce called "Chimichuri".

The Teatro Colón, situated in Buenos Aires (the capital and biggest city of Argentina), is one of the prime opera houses in the world.

Argentina has close affection for cinema. They have the highest rates of movie viewing in the world. They like watching both locally made movies and Hollywood flicks.

Argentina's primary export is whole wheat grain which is very atypical for their weather.

Argentina affirmed liberty from Spain on the 9th of July, 1816.

Existing President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is the first woman President to be selected in Argentina.

Argentina is the world's 30th largest country by populace, with approximately 40 million people.

The currency of Argentina is the Peso.

Argentina was one of the foremost countries to have radio broadcasting. The first relay was made on the 27th of August, 1920. Barely 20 people had a receiver at the time!

Argentina has a brilliant literacy rate of about 97.6%. This position Argentina equal to 58th in the whole world.

Pato is the national sport of Argentina. It is a mixture of basketball and polo.

For all those who love animated films - The world's first animated films were created and released in Argentina, by a person named Quirino Cristiani in 1917.

The Argentine government has projected that 750,000 populace residing in Argentina are illegal migrants.

There are approximately 70,000 members in the Argentine armed forces.

Argentina is split into 23 provinces.

Argentina manufactures a lot of honey, sunflower seeds, soybeans, maize and wheat.

 

[RWS]

Interesting, Pericles, though one needs the salt cellar nearby ("Lumfardo" isn't Argentine Spanish, for example).

 

[Napoleon]

Interesting, Pericles, though one needs the salt cellar nearby ("Lumfardo" isn't Argentine Spanish, for example).

So Lumfardo is slang originating from the tango culture (Italians & others passing time in the brothels waiting for their turn), but it's made it's way into Argentine Spanish enough for the two to be considered synonymous. Especially to extranjeros.

Thanks Pericles. Interesting Thursday dose of "Did you know?"

And I hope that the Teatro Colon opens again some day. It's been closed for a little while now, but I'm definitely going to see an opera there when it re-opens.

chau y suerte

 

[Davidglen77]

This sounds funny to me:

"Argentines seem to be congenitally scared of spices. The huge part of the food is beef and vegetables with a plain sauce called "Chimichuri".

Chimichurri is far from "a plain sauce" it's a mixture of about 7 spices plus oil and vinegar: Here´s my favorite recipie:

50 gramos de aji molido
dos puñados de oregano
una cabeza de ajo bien picada
dos hojas de laurel
una cucharadita de pimienta negra
pimenton picante a tu gusto
abundante sal
dos tazas de aceite
medio litro de vinagre

And in my shop in Villa Urquiza we have a great offering of chimichurri spices. www.candylandshop.com.ar

 

[RWS]

So Lumfardo is slang originating from the tango culture (Italians & others passing time in the brothels waiting for their turn), but it's made it's way into Argentine Spanish enough for the two to be considered synonymous.

The taproots of lunfardo are indeed Spanish and Italian, I'm told, extending from the underworld in mid- or late-nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. Its influence isn't pervasive in gran Bs. As. and pretty thin beyond.

And I hope that the Teatro Colon opens again some day.

So do I. I delight in the place and in what I've heard and seen there.

I've read that the Colón is to be reopened in time for celebration of the bicentenary. Of course, the bicentenary alluded to might be that be of the Congreso de Tucumán . . . .

 

[winston]

Some more interesting facts: The capital city of Antartica is Ushuaia!

Argentina had six military coups in 50 years: 1930,1943,1955,1962,1966, and the most brutal of all 1976.

In 1990, Argentina faced a massive foeign debt and currency instability. Inflation rocketed to 200% per month.

Rosas Dictatorship, where people who didnt support the party were killed. (1829-1845).

And out of all of this sweetness came the people we see cheerfully walking the streets today.

 

[winston]

I question the claim about argentina's lead in inventing animated film. Several searches turned up this info:


Historically and technically, the first animated film (in other words, the earliest animated film ever made) was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton, one of the co-founders of the Vitagraph Company. It was the earliest surviving example of an animated film. It was the first cartoon to use the single frame method, and was projected at 20 frames per second. In the film, a cartoonist's line drawings of two faces were 'animated' (or came to life) on a blackboard. The two faces smiled and winked, and the cigar-smoking man blew smoke in the lady's face; also, a circus clown led a small dog to jump through a hoop. This was soon followed by the first fully-animated film - Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908, Fr.), which consisted solely of simple line drawings (of a clown-like stick figure) that blended, transformed or fluidly morphed from one image into another.

 

[2GuysInPM]

How about the ballpoint pen? (Birome)

 

[tangobob]

What about Argentina's most important, but least known about, contribution to the worlds health
Dr. René Gerónimo Favaloro (July 12, 1923 – July 29, 2000) was an Argentine cardiac surgeon who created the technique for coronary bypass surgery.

We all know about Chrisian Barnard but there have been far more bypass operations performed than transplants, and yet hardly anyone outside Argentina knows about René Favaloro or his tragic death.

 

[BlahBlah]

How about the ballpoint pen? (Birome)

He was Hungarian