Funny and Unexpected Facts about your Country

[Soap887]

Spoiler: WARNING: Wall of text and VERY roughly drawn out history.

In the 17th century, The East India Company branch of the British trade empire traded with China, primarily for tea. It became popular with British citizens, so more tea was imported. Soon after the British Empire took an interest in this commodity, the Chinese Emperor Qianlong issued a law that stated that China was the centre of the world and everything exported out of it must be paid for in silver. The East India Company officials didn't like this, since it cost them more money than it was worth. As a result, we started exporting opium into China in order to pay for tea imports, which China had a long history related to, but British importation of opium made the use increase immensely, which made opium become an integral part of Chinese society. This led China to ban the opium trade entirely. As a result, the British Empire gave up on buying tea and employed smugglers to smuggle tea out of the country and place plantations in areas such as Darjeeling, Assam and Ceylon in India. Since Britain buying tea from China had become an integral part of the economy and it suddenly stopped when we no longer needed it from China, they quickly became bankrupted. After some tensions, China and Britain went to war. One of the first battles of that war involved a Chinese army that hopelessly dwarfed the British force that faced them. The British won, nonetheless, and the Chinese were humiliated. All because of tea.

GG.

 

[MaDIIReD]

In the 1960's this used to be sea:

 

[Aule_]

France once controlled more than 8% of the world's land (good old times )
.

the french empire was tiny in comparison with the grand old british

The British Empire once ruled 20% of the land in the world

source
http://www.friesian.com/british.htm

also in a small city called Chester there is a law where it is legal to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow after midnight if he is inside the city walls

source
http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/international/united-kingdom

(oops didnt see that previous post about the chester law, although there's some more dumb laws in that link, my bad)

 

[Wodleth]

• Sweden is the 3rd largest EU country in land area, after France and Spain.

• Sweden is one of the homelands of the Germanic ethnicity and culture. The Goths, the Suevirs and the Norses (Vikings) all trace their origin back to Sweden (as well as Norway and Denmark for the latter).

• In the 9th and 10th centuries, Swedish Vikings invaded and settled in parts of Eastern Europe as far as Constantinople and the Caspian Sea. They founded the first kingdom of Russia. All the Tsars of Russia until the last one, Nicholas II, were of Swedish Viking descent.

• As of 2006, Sweden had won 588 (winter and summer) Olympic medals, a feat only excelled by 6 much more populous countries (the USA, the USSR, Italy, France, Germany and the UK).

 

[gigo09]

• Sweden's welfare system has been ranked as one of the best in the world and we hold the title as best country to live in/grow old in.

• We're currently having massive political problems due to a very anti-immigration party (which no other party wants to work with) growing rapidly

• We take in the most immigrants in the EU, that's because Sweden's the only country giving out life time visas to people fleeing from Syria.

• We will soon conquer the world thanks' to the new star wars movie:

 

[Wodleth]

-snip-

The välfärd is strong with this one

 

[MaDIIReD]

• Sweden is the 3rd largest EU country in land area, after France and Spain.

The netherlands is number 23 when it comes to size, beating only Belgium, Slovenia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta. Nevertheless it's the eight most populous. It's population density is about 20 times that of sweden ^^.

Also, contrary to popular belief, it seems like the Netherlands experiences very few floods compared to it's neighbours. With an average of 0.1 flood per year, the Netherlands floods 4 times less often than Belgium and Germany, and 7 times less often as the United Kingdom.

 

[Scar__]

A plane hi-jacking in Norway ended only after the hi-jacker had consumed the planes beer supply and traded his weapon for more beer.

 

[Will_em]

Our national symbol is my avatar. We took the piss out of it.

 

[gigo09]

In Sweden 90% of our population watch "From us all, to you all!" at 3 pm on Christmas eve. It's a tradition that has existed since the 60's and became popular because it was the only cartoon that was shown on TV the entire year.

We also open our packages on Christmas eve and eat julbord (Christmas-table) on the same day.

We are the second most atheist country in the world but more people per capita celebrate Christmas here than anywhere else. Cus #Pagans4lyfe

 

[Portalrules333]

This isn't about my country, but the Mongol Empire (rules by the Khans) covered 22 percent of the earth at its greatest size.

It was like 4 times larger than the Roman Empire.

 

[Portalrules333]

(Let's get this thread back on track, 333)
Yes, sir!

-The Stanley Cup has its own bodyguard (but that hasn't prevented it from being dunked in pools, drop-kicked, urinated in, baptizing a child, etc......)

-Canada's maple leaf flag wasn't designed until 1965......98 years after we became a country! (We kinda half copied a British design 'till then)

-If you visit Dawson City, Yukon, you can join the “Sourtoe Cocktail Club” — all you have to do is finish a drink (of anything!) with a real human toe in the bottom. The club’s motto says, “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow — but the lips have gotta touch the toe.” (Gross, right?)

-In 1962 in Pincher Creek, AB, the temperature rose from -19 degrees Celsius to 22 degrees Celsius.....in only one hour!! This was caused by a Chinook, a warm mountain wind.

-Until 2008, selling pop in cans was illegal in PEI. It had to be sold in clear glass bottles. PEI was the only place in North America to have a ban like this.

-Canada's version of the Loch Ness monster is affectionately named "Ogopogo"! (Try spelling it backwards )

-Despite us only having a fraction of the population of our southern neighbors, we purchase 55% percent more Kraft Dinner than Americans do. In fact, even Australia sometimes beats out the US in buying this product. (By that same logic, many more college dorm fires relating to burning KD occur here......newcomers, beware)

-If cows counted as part of Canada's population, they would be 1/3 of it!

-Canada produces more Uranium than any other country.

 

[Will_em]

In the city of geraardsbergen in belgium, there exists a folklorish fest where the mayor and the city council throw cookies at a crowd but before they may do so, they have to drink a chalice of wine with a live fish in it. (Small goldfish). They swallow it all.

Another old fest is the catfest in ypres (you know, got bombarded in WW2 and holds a lot of cementaries of soldiers of those days) where in medieval times threw live cats of the roof of the city hall in the crowd. Now those cats are teddy bears with one holding a prize.

 

[Soap887]

Spoiler: Another wall of text and pretty roughly drawn out history once more

Something you might not know about Game of Thrones is that most of Westeros's history was adapted from British history. More than one event was inspired by Edward I, otherwise known as the "Hammer of the Scots". During most of the UK's history, Scotland was a massive pain in the arse for the king and parliament. If there was ever something that the king, parliament and the church could agree on, it was that Scotland was a nation of whiny bastards constantly looking to piss off the primarily English government*. At one point, King Edward I "Longshanks" literally got so fed up with them that he invaded Scotland. Resistance stopped for the most part, and the king was satisfied: He no longer had a rebellious nation breathing down his and parliament's necks. The king is recorded to have said, "A man often makes good business when he removes a turd."
What a lad.
*Some would say they still are...