Young People in Europe –
Culture/History
To be able to Experience the different Cultures
and learning history of other Counties
To learn the different stories and culture another country has behind them and
how their experience has made them evolve into what they are today. Also how
they are still evolving.
To also learn fun or unique facts about a country can not only be a fun experience
but be a mind opener.
Italy - Venice
Venice is the capital of Italy's Veneto region
and is more than 1500 years old. It dates
back to the mid 400.
There are 118 islands, 416 bridges and 177
canals in Venice.
The Republic of Venice was very powerful. It
held the biggest power during 1300s to
1500s.
Of the four major bridges across the Grand
Canal, the newest one that is only a few
years old is already beginning to decay, unlike
the three that are centuries old.
Venice is home to more than 450 palaces.
Spain
Barcelona’s prime language is not Spanish. It
is Catalan. (You maybe knew that.) But did
you know that even their website
domains vary? Barcelona chooses .cat
instead of Spain’s typical .es.
The Sagrada Familia has taken longer to build
than the Great Pyramids. The Pyramids in
Egypt only took 20 years to build with
ancient tools, and so far, la Sagrada Familia
has taken around 200 hundred years to be
constructed with modern technology.
United Kingdom
City of London sold the 1831 London Bridge
because it was not strong enough to support
the increased traffic in 1967. The bridge was
bought by Robert P. McCulloch and relocated
to Arizona, US.
In the early 19th century, the British
government spent 40 percent of its annual
expenditure to free slaves and as
compensation for slave owners.
The world’s first speeding ticket was given to
Walter Arnold in Kent on 28 January 1896 for
going at 8 mph on a road with a 2 mph speed
limit.
During WWII, the British government
popularised the idea that eating carrots can
improve night vision, to hide the fact that
RAF had advanced radar systems that
accurately spotted enemy bombers.
France
The French Army was the first to use
camouflage in 1915 (World War I) – the
word camouflage came from the French verb
‘to make up for the stage’. Guns and vehicles
were painted by artists called camofleurs.
Europe’s highest mountain is in the French
Alps.
The French invented the metric system, the
decimalised way of counting and weighing, in
1793.
The world’s greatest cycle race, the Tour de
France, has been around for more than 100
years.
It is against the law to carry live snails on a
high-speed train in France without their own
tickets.
Turkey
The ancient city of Troy was located in
modern day Western Turkey.
Two of the Seven Wonders of the ancient
world are in Turkey: Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus and Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
St. Nicholas, also known as Santa Claus, was
born in Patara, South Western Turkey.
For more than 2000 years Istanbul was
capital of three empires: Roman, Byzantine
and Ottoman.
The first known university in the human
history is in Harran, in southeast Turkey.
Germany
The capital of Berlin has more bridges than
Venice (960 bridges).
German law maintains that it is a basic
human instinct to be free and therefore,
prisoners have the right to escape jail.
College education in Germany is free even
for internationals.
Germany has more cultural activities and
places than any other country (with 6,200
museums, 820 theatres, 130 professional
orchestras and 8,800 libraries in 2013)
Germany is Europe's second largest beer
consumer.
Sweden
As of 2006, Sweden had won 588 (winter and
summer) Olympic medals, a feat only
excelled by 6 other countries (the USA, the
USSR, Italy, France, Germany and the UK).
The Swedes spend the longest time in
tertiary education with an average student
age of 25.5 years old.
As of late 2012, Sweden had obtained 30
Nobel prizes, including 5 Peace prizes.
Sweden has the highest number of
McDonald restaurants per capita in Europe
(although that is only about half of the US
ratio).
Romania
Well known Transylvania is located in central
Romania, home to the famous Vlad the
Dracula. Though Dracula is a purely fiction,
Bram Stoker named this character after a real
person who happened to have a taste for
blood: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia or better
known as Vlad the Impaler.
Three clay tablets, dated to around 5300 BC,
discovered in the village of Tartaria (central
Romania), have been the subject of
considerable controversy among
archaeologists, some claim that the symbols
represent the earliest known form of writing
in the world.
The Merry Cemetery in the village of Săpânța
- Maramureş is known as the happiest
cemetery in the world
Sicily
About 70 percent of people in Sicily actually
speak Sicilian not Italian. In fact Sicilian is so
different from Italian that even though it is
referred to as a dialect, it could be a
language in its own right.
The Republican movement to unite Italy
started in Sicily.
One of the world's most famous
mathematicians, Archimedes, was born in
Sicily.
Created in the early 13th century, the sonnet
was then brought from Sicily to Tuscany.