Europe Trivia : Germany

Maybe you think you know a few things about my home country. Well, you may know that Germany has a population of roughly 82 million people, that there are 16 federal states, that Goethe and Einstein and many other celebrities were Germans, that Angela Merkel is our first female chancellor and that at the moment „we are pope“ like a German tabloid put on its front page in giant letters and even that we Germans do NOT run around in dirndls and lederhosen all the time, but did you also know these following facts (not in order of importance)?

Germany won the 1^st prize in the Eurovision Song Contest only once in 1982 with „Ein bißchen Frieden“, sung by Nicole.

In 2008 Germany was in a shameful 3^rd place behind the Czech Republic and Austria concerning the beer consuming per head with 108 litres.
There are about 1,200 breweries in Germany that produce over 5,000 brands of beer.

German inventions include the coffee filter (1908 by smart homemaker Melitta Bentz), Aspirin (1897 by chemist Felix Hoffmann), curry wurst (1949 by Herta Heuwer), tissues (actually I found out a prototype was invented in my home town of Goeppingen!) and of course the car (1886 by Carl Benz and not an American as Barack Obama claimed in a speech a while ago!).

The Stuttgart zoological and botanical garden „Wilhelma“ holds the world record for the biggest bloom of a titan arum at a height of 2.94 m or 9 ft. 6 in. in 2005.

Germany was the first European country to establish a system for health insurance for its workers, based on a law from 1883 constituted by the Bismarck government.

The world famous Oktoberfest in Munich exists since 1810 and has only been cancelled 24 times, mostly due to war or cholera. In the last years the Catholic priest Rainer Maria Schießler has worked as a beer tent waiter in his yearly vacation, the earnings go to different projects like an orphanage.

I admit it, I knew only some facts myself, but it was fun to collect them all and I hope you will have as much fun reading them.

Not trivial at all is that Germany and of course all of Europe has some very talented artists that are just waiting on ArtFire to show you their creations. So why not have a look?