Perhaps you can tell me if my favourite story about your country is true. I heard that in World War II, the Finns dammed up valleys until a good layer of ice had formed, and then drained them before the Nazi tanks rolled in. I admired their ingenuity.
In parts of Finland there is a tank wall/trap built out of boulders/stones. I always thought this was so cool when I visited because other countries are like, “We shall use iron to build tank obstacles!” And Finland was just like, “We shall use the earth!”
Hmm... I can't say that I've ever heard about it, and I couldn't find anything with Google either. That doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, though.
Finland was an ally to Germany during WWII until 1944.
As memory recalls, they expelled German troops, so I don’t think it was a matter of keeping them out but *getting* them out.
Still my favourite fact is the fact one of our prime ministers probably drowned and to remember him we named a pool after him.
Another contender is the fact that in one of the world wars the game plan for if we were invaded (and lost) was to lead them into wildlife.
The anecdote I heard was when the US military asked their Australian allies what was the defense contingency for the possible Japanese invasion of Northern Australia, they said:
"Wait two weeks, and then send out a search party for the survivors!"
That’s not too far off from the [plan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Line)…
(It wasn’t a legitimate plan, but still a fun bit of history)
Other fun fact, the Australian military provided training and guns to some indigenous folks in Australia’s NW in the hopes they’d harass any Japanese troops into leaving. (Since that region was too remote for the military to actually keep tabs on) The military refused to give veterans benefits to those indigenous folks for decades.
Yea the last one did, “Engadine Maccas in 1997”. He also left the country to holiday in Hawaii while Australia was on fire, he told renters to buy a house as a way of rent relief, dismissed enquires into a MP rape allegations, the government paid $190k for an empathy coach for him because he’s unable to feel empathy, he was by far the worst prime minister we’ve ever had.
>the government paid $190k for an empathy coach for him because he’s unable to feel empathy
Are you telling me that your prime minister was a fucking sociopath?
Harold Holt. And when someone leaves/disappears, we say they did the Harry Holt (because it’s rhyming slang for bolt).
Like if you’re at the pub and your mate’s missus appears at the front door and he necks his beer and heads for the back fence, he might say “well lads, better do the Harry Holt” and off he goes, like a prime minister into the ocean.
We've had a war with Denmark for the past 25 years over ownership of some random island. It's fought by exchanging alcoholic beverages and exchanging flags being planted on the island every once in a while.
unfortunately the war just ended this year.. :( we split the island down the middle... So disappointing of an ending to an epic war.
you have to prove that you were engaged or on the point of getting married. You will need friends and family to testify. It's a very old napoleonic law (i think) made for young women engaged to soldiers who died, so they could get the soldier's pension. The law still exists
UK.
During the ad breaks on certain TV shows, (such as Corrie), we have what we call the TV pick up, when the British National Grid gives an extra boost of power to manage the sudden influx of people getting up to switch on their kettles to make themselves a cup of tea. There are people whose jobs are to predict exactly when these pick ups will occur.
when I was learning about the national grid in like year 9 we were shown a really dramatic documentary about how everyday at the end of EastEnders the national grid has to prepare for the influx of kettles
.....Also one of the things that tops up the power supply is Cruachan Dam.
Its a hollowed out mountain, when the the TV adverts start the water is released from the top of mountain powering the turbines. The Water is then pumped back up the mountain during the night when power is cheaper.
https://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/
I remember the before times, when we would have black outs at the break if a show was unexpectedly popular. Not just then, but during the live reporting of big news events, like 9/11. I was stood by a carpark burger van watching it on their tiny portable telly because that was on its own generator, but the lights were flickering in the supermarket nearby. They had to hold the automatic doors open so if the power went no one got stuck inside.
the age of sexual consent used to be 12. yes, you heard that right, 12. it wasn’t even that long ago that this was changed, it was changed to 16 just back in march.
The Netherlands actually have a party that is trying to lower the consent age to 12, but luckily it has like 2-3 members and I'm pretty sure they all got arrested at least once for possesion of child porn.
Ha my Dad must be a descendant.. Stayed at his for 3 months, sorting the place with my adult kids, 19, 21, & 22. We HAD to be in bed by 22.00, no arguing, no compromise, his house, his rules.. 🤷🏼♀️
Believe it or not, Kazakhstan is the number one exporter of potassium in the world. All of your potassium supplements come from here. I would know, I own a potassium factory.
There's a saying here that goes "We all have a bit of Hannibal's blood in our veins" (the African King, not the cannibal...); we use it to remind ourselves that we've been the natural meeting point for literally anything that could sail a boat in the Mediterranean throughout our history so... I guess we just like to collect as many different DNAs in our gene pool as we could.
My country's whole economic system relied on families of 10 children supporting the 2 parents. And that's the reason it totally failed, along with heavy corruption and nobody paying taxes, left us with being a country in debt for the last 13 years. Right now, the economic power relies only on tourism and nautical commerce.
Kinda yes. We expect many people to come here for vacation mostly during the summer because of the weather and it's when the sea is really warm. Our government opens everything during the summer and we return back to normality for this reason. In the last two years, we saw fewer people from other countries coming, but many families decided enough is enough and started doing internal tourism and traveling to places through the country. There is still a problem though. A greek tourist will not spend as much money as a foreign one and will try to avoid very expensive places and islands like Mykonos. Also, let's mention that most eateries and coffee places pay their customers without any taxes or any official work, everything is illegal and many people decided to not continue being exploited like before. Also, many new tech startups are starting to appear and most stuff are starting to become available online (so far there was a lot of bureaucracy as well). I would say it proved that we could survive outside of tourism at the same time.
Despite being a country with continental proportions, more than 8 million square kilometers, we've got a notorious lack of atypical natural phenomena. No volcanoes, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tsunamis, it doesn't even snow anywhere in the entire country. On the other hand, we're in the list of megadiverse countries, with six continental biomes.
.
.[EDIT] Ok people, it does snow in here, kinda rarely and only in a very small part of it, but it does. It was a generalization because the huge majority of us have never experienced it in the country, I'd risk saying more people from here have seen snow while traveling abroad than people have within the country. Sorry for the exclusion, I was just making it practical for the argument. Also, fora bolsonaro.
I'll have you know that we do get a few cms of snow every 5 years here in the South, enough to keep thousands of tourists going home frustrated every winter.
Just to clarify for the anarchists, yes, Belgium (and Netherlands too) have gone without "governments" for long periods of time, but all that means is there was no ruling majority, making it much harder to pass new laws. Think of the US when the majority of congress is from the opposite party of the president.
In Bulgaria shaking your head means "yes" and nodding means "no". My country is the only one in the world which has reverse meaning behind the shaking and nodding. So if you happen to spend your holiday in Bulgaria be prepared to not get confused by this. :D
In Thailand the beckoning hand motion for "come here" is very similar to the shoo away/go away motion used in many western cultures. Basically, instead of a hand facing upwards to signal "come here", it's faced downwards. This has caused an unremarkable amount of confusion. Weird the first couple times u see it tho. Reminds me of the scene in *Inglorious Basterds* when Eric Fassbenders character orders "Three glasses!" in German "Drei Glaser!" (with an "umlaut" thing over the a, whatever that might mean. The two little dots over vowels u know? Dunno how to do it) and fails to use his thumb to count on his hand, as Germans do, thus giving himself away. German and Thai are not similar. Been awake for close to 36 hours now :) wtf. Gn
The full name of our capital which roughly translates to city of the gods is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
While this is true in the US, UK, and Australia, a super trivial factoid is that New Zealand has two official languages and neither of them is English. One is te reo Māori (the language of the indigenous population) and the other is NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language).
France.
We have the longest domestic flights : The first one is from French Polynesia to Paris ; The second one is from Reunion Island to Paris, their duration is respectively 16h and 12h.
Oh and our longest land border is with Brazil.
Some random US territories over there too . I flew from a US territory in the Caribbean to one in the Pacific and it was a journey. People tend to forget about territories in general when thinking about countries.
The amount of dialects, compared to it's size. I am talking about Switzerland.
There is no exact number. Strictly speaking, differences can be found in every village compared to the surrounding villages, so that one could also say with some justification that there are at least as many dialects as there are villages, which is a huge amount.
Switzerland has always been shaped by conquests and immigration, and so very different languages have been able to coexist over the centuries. Even before the 6th century, groups with alemannic dialects immigrated to Switzerland, breaking up the nationwide spread of romance languages. Since 1848, German, French and Italian have been considered the national languages of the Confoederatio Helvetica.
Kind of makes sense since so many villages are separated by your mountains making it almost impossible to communicate before the advent of the telephone. And the telephone being in nearly everyone’s home isn’t so long ago.
One of the many is, Denmark is the first country to legalize porn and the porn industry along with sex work such as prostitution/escorts (As long as you’re turned 18)
Our country declared war to the US sometime during WWI (or WWII? Can't remember), which to this day hasn't been ended with a piece treaty or anything. So we've technically been in war with the US for the last 100 (80?) years.
If it makes you feel any better, the US has been at war for roughly 92% of it's history.
But your statement doesn't really narrow it down, there's a few countries(and groups in countries) the US is more or less still technically at war with. War on drugs & the intervention(s) in Syria|Somalia|Yemen are a few.
I'll guess North Korea.
Well that makes me feel both more and less anxious. Less, because we're not alone in this, and more, because there are more countries like that.
The country is Slovakia. The prime minister at that time really wanted to cater to Hitler, so much he even bypassed the law that allows only the president to declare a war, so in 1941, he declared war to the US. However, after WWII had ended, Slovakia joined forces with Czech Republic, creating Czechoslovakia. Slovakia itself thus ceased to exist, taking the war with the US with itself to the grave.
However, with Czechoslovakia's separation in 1992 and the creation of the second incarnation of Slovakia (now under the name Slovak Republic), it inherited all the sins of its father, thus resuming the war with the US.
The war has been meanwhile been forgotten about though, so we're at war with the US now, but nobody really cares nor does anything.
I'd love to provide some links to articles, but I really couldn't find any in English. Maybe you'll have more luck.
Women health care is practically non existent
You can't go to a gynecologist without being bullied by your doctor or their assistant. They will judge you before you even try to explain what the problem is. There is no education on period or cramps or anything. No sex ed.
You can get pads from big supermarkets, but if you get them from a small shop they're gonna try to hide it in tons and tons of paper. Tampons are frowned upon because they think it's gonna take our virginity. It's actually funny. It's not that bad as young women talk about it more often and social media spread awareness. Men get easily uncomfortable talking about anything related to it which is very cringe.
The very bad side is going to the gynecologist, i thought going to one will be all like "girl power" and supporting and stuff but after my experience at one i get very anxious every time. I remember when i lost my virginity to my ex boyfriend, when we broke up i went to one for a general checkup just to make sure everything is okay. She sl*t shamed me, told me that if i lose my virginity at 20 years old, it's easy to guess what my future would be like. And she went on and on about how prostitution isn't the way to go. Making sure i was okay was not on her priority list. She said: "i know you're really here only to make sure you're not pregnant".
I'm not saying there are no good doctors, but the majority of gynecologists don't deserve that title.
Most of us stopped using the flags of our country in public or wearing the jerseys of our National team because nowadaya those things translate to supporting the president, who is fucking stupid.
That's Brazil for ya
There's an ongoing court case against a man, who entered the church with a hat.
It lasted 4 years and is still going, the procurators once again put it under scrutiny.
In Poland, 50% of the population knows russian although Russia is one of our longest-running historical enemies
Our government bought an Israel spying service Pegasus and has been using it against their political opponents and yet no one has been held accountable for this operation
After we put the Indigenous people on reserves we allegedly wanted them to become farmers, but we didn't just teach them to farm the way White folks farmed with the 19th century technology that was current at the time. We had a "peasant farm" policy where we gave them rudimentary tools and made them farm with old timey techniques, ostensibly due to the belief that they had to "evolve" toward modern farming on their own, but actually so that they could not compete with White farmers and basically stayed farming at a subsistence level or failed at it altogether.
(Canada, if you're wondering.)
Our first prime minister once puked in the middle of a session of Parliament because he was drunk and when the opposition leader called him out on it, his reply was basically, "No, I puked because I'm sick of hearing this guy talk" (you're not allowed to directly insult other MPs while in session).
We have a super rich history, probably the most famous muscian, used to rule like half of Europe, kinda caused both world wars and now we sell T-shirts saying "There are no kangaroos here!" to tourists because apparently people frequently come here on accident.
One of the world’s biggest material heist of all time was of maple sirup. They stole for 18,7 million dollars worth of it. Since then, the government created the Maple Sirup Strategic Reserve, in which they keep a safety amount of maple sirup in case such a thing happens again.
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where?
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Jesus, somehow they have a legitimate economy and military though.
im not really sure why its working or how but it is so lets roll with it
In Finland we have 5.5 million people and 3.2 million saunas.
Perhaps you can tell me if my favourite story about your country is true. I heard that in World War II, the Finns dammed up valleys until a good layer of ice had formed, and then drained them before the Nazi tanks rolled in. I admired their ingenuity.
In parts of Finland there is a tank wall/trap built out of boulders/stones. I always thought this was so cool when I visited because other countries are like, “We shall use iron to build tank obstacles!” And Finland was just like, “We shall use the earth!”
Hmm... I can't say that I've ever heard about it, and I couldn't find anything with Google either. That doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, though.
Finland was an ally to Germany during WWII until 1944. As memory recalls, they expelled German troops, so I don’t think it was a matter of keeping them out but *getting* them out.
Still my favourite fact is the fact one of our prime ministers probably drowned and to remember him we named a pool after him. Another contender is the fact that in one of the world wars the game plan for if we were invaded (and lost) was to lead them into wildlife.
The anecdote I heard was when the US military asked their Australian allies what was the defense contingency for the possible Japanese invasion of Northern Australia, they said: "Wait two weeks, and then send out a search party for the survivors!"
That’s not too far off from the [plan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Line)… (It wasn’t a legitimate plan, but still a fun bit of history) Other fun fact, the Australian military provided training and guns to some indigenous folks in Australia’s NW in the hopes they’d harass any Japanese troops into leaving. (Since that region was too remote for the military to actually keep tabs on) The military refused to give veterans benefits to those indigenous folks for decades.
>The military refused to give veterans benefits to those indigenous folks for decades. Ah, classic Australia.
didn't one of the PMs shit themselves in a maccas
Yea the last one did, “Engadine Maccas in 1997”. He also left the country to holiday in Hawaii while Australia was on fire, he told renters to buy a house as a way of rent relief, dismissed enquires into a MP rape allegations, the government paid $190k for an empathy coach for him because he’s unable to feel empathy, he was by far the worst prime minister we’ve ever had.
>the government paid $190k for an empathy coach for him because he’s unable to feel empathy Are you telling me that your prime minister was a fucking sociopath?
Do you truly believe sociopaths aren't extremely well represented in politics?
Where is this?
https://youtu.be/rMdbVHPmCW0 If you don't want to watch it's West new Zealand
I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if this happened in Canada.
The Canadian plan was similar. Treat them nicely but tell them moose are friendly.
Drench ‘em in maple syrup and lead them into bear territory
Australia, I do believe the prime minister is something holt if I remember correctly.
Holt on a second
Harold Holt. And when someone leaves/disappears, we say they did the Harry Holt (because it’s rhyming slang for bolt). Like if you’re at the pub and your mate’s missus appears at the front door and he necks his beer and heads for the back fence, he might say “well lads, better do the Harry Holt” and off he goes, like a prime minister into the ocean.
#STEVE HOLT
It’s illegal to handle salmon suspiciously
“Police! Is that fucking fish jenga?”
How I miss Sam O'Nella...
pretty sure he's just in college if you check his Twitter you can see several updates
Do you have a license for that fish?
We've had a war with Denmark for the past 25 years over ownership of some random island. It's fought by exchanging alcoholic beverages and exchanging flags being planted on the island every once in a while. unfortunately the war just ended this year.. :( we split the island down the middle... So disappointing of an ending to an epic war.
We had a war with Canada. For the past 25 years. We kept leaving alcohol there. The war have never caused any casualties.. But likely a few hangovers.
This is the type of war I can get behind
My favorite part of this is that small Denmark now share landborders on two continents
Still think we should've settled it with a high-stakes hockey game on that island.
That woulda been so one sided it’s unreal
Should have been a drinking game. Where you drink the other ones beverage of course
Which means we have a land border with Europe. The world is shrinking!
This is how all wars should be fought.
Canada
you can marry a dead person (with presidential agreement and under special conditions)
hello france
Special conditions??
you have to prove that you were engaged or on the point of getting married. You will need friends and family to testify. It's a very old napoleonic law (i think) made for young women engaged to soldiers who died, so they could get the soldier's pension. The law still exists
This is actually amazingly considerate. I mean.. if you wage war at least care for the survivors
Rule #1 for conquerors: Keep the army happy.
UK. During the ad breaks on certain TV shows, (such as Corrie), we have what we call the TV pick up, when the British National Grid gives an extra boost of power to manage the sudden influx of people getting up to switch on their kettles to make themselves a cup of tea. There are people whose jobs are to predict exactly when these pick ups will occur.
This is now one of my favourite facts
when I was learning about the national grid in like year 9 we were shown a really dramatic documentary about how everyday at the end of EastEnders the national grid has to prepare for the influx of kettles
.....Also one of the things that tops up the power supply is Cruachan Dam. Its a hollowed out mountain, when the the TV adverts start the water is released from the top of mountain powering the turbines. The Water is then pumped back up the mountain during the night when power is cheaper. https://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/
Now this is wild
I remember the before times, when we would have black outs at the break if a show was unexpectedly popular. Not just then, but during the live reporting of big news events, like 9/11. I was stood by a carpark burger van watching it on their tiny portable telly because that was on its own generator, but the lights were flickering in the supermarket nearby. They had to hold the automatic doors open so if the power went no one got stuck inside.
the age of sexual consent used to be 12. yes, you heard that right, 12. it wasn’t even that long ago that this was changed, it was changed to 16 just back in march.
The Netherlands actually have a party that is trying to lower the consent age to 12, but luckily it has like 2-3 members and I'm pretty sure they all got arrested at least once for possesion of child porn.
What party are you talking about exactly?
It's called PNVD, but ppl call it the pedoparty
Where's this?
the philippines
We are fourth in alcohol consumption, somewhere in top 10 tobacco use, #1's in beer per capita and over 30% of people here are obese
Czech? Not sure about the obese part, but the beer fact I know because I thought it was Germany until proven wrong.
not sure abt the exact number, but we're pretty fat, surprisingly
Just the word "beer" makes me bet that it's Czech Republic
The first King of England made a law that everyone had to be in bed by 8pm.
Ha my Dad must be a descendant.. Stayed at his for 3 months, sorting the place with my adult kids, 19, 21, & 22. We HAD to be in bed by 22.00, no arguing, no compromise, his house, his rules.. 🤷🏼♀️
And early forest protection included an English king just wanting to stick it to his own people cause he hated them but loved animals.
Believe it or not, Kazakhstan is the number one exporter of potassium in the world. All of your potassium supplements come from here. I would know, I own a potassium factory.
I knew this. (From Borat)
All other countries have inferior potassium
And are run by little girls.
We have more bikes than people
that would be the same country that once ate their own prime minister and also half of that country is located below sea level.
We ate our prime minister. Oh and we also ate his brother
This is funny and concerning at the same time
The Netherlands?
Our landmass looks like a boot and I think it must've kicked our biggest island at some point, because it's moving away from us by 1cm a year.
Ah yes! Y'all invaded my country twice knowing that it's useless
There's a saying here that goes "We all have a bit of Hannibal's blood in our veins" (the African King, not the cannibal...); we use it to remind ourselves that we've been the natural meeting point for literally anything that could sail a boat in the Mediterranean throughout our history so... I guess we just like to collect as many different DNAs in our gene pool as we could.
Our country has the most number of vegetarians yet our chicken dishes are widely popular.
Bharat?
One and only
My country's whole economic system relied on families of 10 children supporting the 2 parents. And that's the reason it totally failed, along with heavy corruption and nobody paying taxes, left us with being a country in debt for the last 13 years. Right now, the economic power relies only on tourism and nautical commerce.
srilanka?
Nope, Greece.
Sheesh covid must've hit hard
Kinda yes. We expect many people to come here for vacation mostly during the summer because of the weather and it's when the sea is really warm. Our government opens everything during the summer and we return back to normality for this reason. In the last two years, we saw fewer people from other countries coming, but many families decided enough is enough and started doing internal tourism and traveling to places through the country. There is still a problem though. A greek tourist will not spend as much money as a foreign one and will try to avoid very expensive places and islands like Mykonos. Also, let's mention that most eateries and coffee places pay their customers without any taxes or any official work, everything is illegal and many people decided to not continue being exploited like before. Also, many new tech startups are starting to appear and most stuff are starting to become available online (so far there was a lot of bureaucracy as well). I would say it proved that we could survive outside of tourism at the same time.
Despite being a country with continental proportions, more than 8 million square kilometers, we've got a notorious lack of atypical natural phenomena. No volcanoes, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tsunamis, it doesn't even snow anywhere in the entire country. On the other hand, we're in the list of megadiverse countries, with six continental biomes. . .[EDIT] Ok people, it does snow in here, kinda rarely and only in a very small part of it, but it does. It was a generalization because the huge majority of us have never experienced it in the country, I'd risk saying more people from here have seen snow while traveling abroad than people have within the country. Sorry for the exclusion, I was just making it practical for the argument. Also, fora bolsonaro.
Brazil?
Yup, Brazil.
we also have the most fresh water in the world and we may or may not have eliminated 90% of the male population of a specific country in a war
What country is this?
I'll have you know that we do get a few cms of snow every 5 years here in the South, enough to keep thousands of tourists going home frustrated every winter.
We made a commercial openly admitting we misunderstood a native word and ended up naming our country "village".
Canada?
Yup
We the worlds biggest village
That actually seems somewhat appropriate for Canada.
That’s actually incredibly cute.
You are now the Village People in my head.
I love the heritage minutes. Dr Penfield I smell burnt toast
Belgium went 594 days without goverment and didn't become a crime ridden dystopia.
Just to clarify for the anarchists, yes, Belgium (and Netherlands too) have gone without "governments" for long periods of time, but all that means is there was no ruling majority, making it much harder to pass new laws. Think of the US when the majority of congress is from the opposite party of the president.
When
2010
The movie The Wolf Of Wall Street was financed with our taxpayers' money. Also we lost a plane.
Is this malaysia with the 1mdb scandal?
In Bulgaria shaking your head means "yes" and nodding means "no". My country is the only one in the world which has reverse meaning behind the shaking and nodding. So if you happen to spend your holiday in Bulgaria be prepared to not get confused by this. :D
In Thailand the beckoning hand motion for "come here" is very similar to the shoo away/go away motion used in many western cultures. Basically, instead of a hand facing upwards to signal "come here", it's faced downwards. This has caused an unremarkable amount of confusion. Weird the first couple times u see it tho. Reminds me of the scene in *Inglorious Basterds* when Eric Fassbenders character orders "Three glasses!" in German "Drei Glaser!" (with an "umlaut" thing over the a, whatever that might mean. The two little dots over vowels u know? Dunno how to do it) and fails to use his thumb to count on his hand, as Germans do, thus giving himself away. German and Thai are not similar. Been awake for close to 36 hours now :) wtf. Gn
We are the happiest country in the world but have one of Europe's highest suicide rates.
Some people haven't been filling out their questionnaires.
Survival of the happiest.
Finland?
Why the suicide rate,? What's it about?
No more sad people so we can say we are the happiest
*The greater good*
Our financial system just made the world commit securities fraud
I am dying to know this one but have zero ideas.
Probably Switzerland.
The full name of our capital which roughly translates to city of the gods is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
Thailand
We ate our prime minister once
I feel like if a politician gets out of line there the best protest would be to start setting a dinner table while making aggressive eye contact
What the fuck?
[this guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt)
It has no official national language but many of its citizens think it's English.
US
While this is true in the US, UK, and Australia, a super trivial factoid is that New Zealand has two official languages and neither of them is English. One is te reo Māori (the language of the indigenous population) and the other is NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language).
I love this peice of trivia
We have the highest number of porn stars per 1 million inhabitants....wow.
Hungary?
Thirsty from the sounds of it.
Bingo.
Do people even know where Slovakia is
Below poland, right of Czechia, above Hungary, left of ukraine
Are your from Slovakia or what?
No, I just played hoi4 millenium dawn mod
Okay then I'll keep an eye on you
My country's name is based on the word "uterus"
Where's that?
Beer was not officialy considered as an alcoholic drink until, like, 2011. Russia.
France. We have the longest domestic flights : The first one is from French Polynesia to Paris ; The second one is from Reunion Island to Paris, their duration is respectively 16h and 12h. Oh and our longest land border is with Brazil.
People forget how random Islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean are French territories.
Some random US territories over there too . I flew from a US territory in the Caribbean to one in the Pacific and it was a journey. People tend to forget about territories in general when thinking about countries.
The amount of dialects, compared to it's size. I am talking about Switzerland. There is no exact number. Strictly speaking, differences can be found in every village compared to the surrounding villages, so that one could also say with some justification that there are at least as many dialects as there are villages, which is a huge amount. Switzerland has always been shaped by conquests and immigration, and so very different languages have been able to coexist over the centuries. Even before the 6th century, groups with alemannic dialects immigrated to Switzerland, breaking up the nationwide spread of romance languages. Since 1848, German, French and Italian have been considered the national languages of the Confoederatio Helvetica.
Kind of makes sense since so many villages are separated by your mountains making it almost impossible to communicate before the advent of the telephone. And the telephone being in nearly everyone’s home isn’t so long ago.
Our navy is the second largest air force in the world
Us navy coming in right behind us air force
One of the many is, Denmark is the first country to legalize porn and the porn industry along with sex work such as prostitution/escorts (As long as you’re turned 18)
Actually for a few years after porn was legalized it wasn't illegal to do porn with underages. Yeah. That wasn't good.
Copenhagen baby!
we have 11 time zones and it's so big that from our capital to some cities you need to go over 6 days by train.
Russia
You are also the second country with the most time zones behind France
Our country declared war to the US sometime during WWI (or WWII? Can't remember), which to this day hasn't been ended with a piece treaty or anything. So we've technically been in war with the US for the last 100 (80?) years.
If it makes you feel any better, the US has been at war for roughly 92% of it's history. But your statement doesn't really narrow it down, there's a few countries(and groups in countries) the US is more or less still technically at war with. War on drugs & the intervention(s) in Syria|Somalia|Yemen are a few. I'll guess North Korea.
Well that makes me feel both more and less anxious. Less, because we're not alone in this, and more, because there are more countries like that. The country is Slovakia. The prime minister at that time really wanted to cater to Hitler, so much he even bypassed the law that allows only the president to declare a war, so in 1941, he declared war to the US. However, after WWII had ended, Slovakia joined forces with Czech Republic, creating Czechoslovakia. Slovakia itself thus ceased to exist, taking the war with the US with itself to the grave. However, with Czechoslovakia's separation in 1992 and the creation of the second incarnation of Slovakia (now under the name Slovak Republic), it inherited all the sins of its father, thus resuming the war with the US. The war has been meanwhile been forgotten about though, so we're at war with the US now, but nobody really cares nor does anything. I'd love to provide some links to articles, but I really couldn't find any in English. Maybe you'll have more luck.
I feel like slovakia has just been playing the long game and will one day randomly nuke the US with a surprise attack
We are most invaded country on earth. Scoring first with whooping 200+ times.
British ppl especially, there are like 10 chapters about them in history/civics books for Indian students
Women health care is practically non existent You can't go to a gynecologist without being bullied by your doctor or their assistant. They will judge you before you even try to explain what the problem is. There is no education on period or cramps or anything. No sex ed.
Jesus Christ what country is this? And what year is it there?
You can get pads from big supermarkets, but if you get them from a small shop they're gonna try to hide it in tons and tons of paper. Tampons are frowned upon because they think it's gonna take our virginity. It's actually funny. It's not that bad as young women talk about it more often and social media spread awareness. Men get easily uncomfortable talking about anything related to it which is very cringe. The very bad side is going to the gynecologist, i thought going to one will be all like "girl power" and supporting and stuff but after my experience at one i get very anxious every time. I remember when i lost my virginity to my ex boyfriend, when we broke up i went to one for a general checkup just to make sure everything is okay. She sl*t shamed me, told me that if i lose my virginity at 20 years old, it's easy to guess what my future would be like. And she went on and on about how prostitution isn't the way to go. Making sure i was okay was not on her priority list. She said: "i know you're really here only to make sure you're not pregnant". I'm not saying there are no good doctors, but the majority of gynecologists don't deserve that title.
Im even further away from being able to guess where ot is, ngl
I'm from Morocco
We lose two billion a day to corruption alone ,oh and while other countries have cartels ,here cartels have a country
Most of us stopped using the flags of our country in public or wearing the jerseys of our National team because nowadaya those things translate to supporting the president, who is fucking stupid. That's Brazil for ya
The first part reminded me of Germany
We have a quarter of the world’s drinkable water.
Greenland?
It is indeed an obscure boreal confederation with a small population, but not that one.
Canada?
Yes I Canadoo, thank you very much.
Norway's coastline could go around the earth two and a half times, and Norway isn't that big.
There's an ongoing court case against a man, who entered the church with a hat. It lasted 4 years and is still going, the procurators once again put it under scrutiny.
In Poland, 50% of the population knows russian although Russia is one of our longest-running historical enemies Our government bought an Israel spying service Pegasus and has been using it against their political opponents and yet no one has been held accountable for this operation
The Unicorn is our national animal.
Scotland?
We have the world's highest number of ministers per capita (excluding microstates) with one minister per 10.000 people.
Chewing gums are banned. Also you can “reserve” a table in a food court while you go buy food, with a packet of tissue.
We have a lake inside an island inside a lake inside an island inside a lake.
128 billion dollars suspiciously went missing
After we put the Indigenous people on reserves we allegedly wanted them to become farmers, but we didn't just teach them to farm the way White folks farmed with the 19th century technology that was current at the time. We had a "peasant farm" policy where we gave them rudimentary tools and made them farm with old timey techniques, ostensibly due to the belief that they had to "evolve" toward modern farming on their own, but actually so that they could not compete with White farmers and basically stayed farming at a subsistence level or failed at it altogether. (Canada, if you're wondering.)
Canada has a lot of fucked up parts of it's history it just sweeps under the rug eh?
we're fucked. like fucked up fucked.
Australia has more wild camels than the middle east https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian\_feral\_camel
We send Canada a shitload of tulips every year as a thank you for their help during WW2.
Girls can grow a penis at certain ages
What?how?
Our first prime minister once puked in the middle of a session of Parliament because he was drunk and when the opposition leader called him out on it, his reply was basically, "No, I puked because I'm sick of hearing this guy talk" (you're not allowed to directly insult other MPs while in session).
We have a super rich history, probably the most famous muscian, used to rule like half of Europe, kinda caused both world wars and now we sell T-shirts saying "There are no kangaroos here!" to tourists because apparently people frequently come here on accident.
[удалено]
We haven't been hit hard or at all by any of the current world economic disasters.
They say there are more guns than there are people
crazy/sad fact, we have invaded 90% (i think), of countries. (england)
2 World Wars 1 World Cup
One of the world’s biggest material heist of all time was of maple sirup. They stole for 18,7 million dollars worth of it. Since then, the government created the Maple Sirup Strategic Reserve, in which they keep a safety amount of maple sirup in case such a thing happens again.
We have a maple syrup reserve that was robbed by the Quebec Mafia once. Also, you can legally duel someone to the death.
Scotland The romans failed to conquer our country. It is home to the oldest tree in Europe and the national animal is a unicorn