Australia Day – Funny Stats and Facts

Today is January 26th, and it’s….

🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA DAY! 🇦🇺

Here’s some fun and interesting Aussie statistics for you…

 

– A 2019 survey shows 88% of people are proud to be Australian. That’s a lot of Aussie pride!

– 98% of Aussies will host or attend a BBQ today. But less than 1% will have “shrimp on the barbie”, cause that’s just a made up saying.

– Approx 72 million beers will be drunk today in Australia.

-And ~14% of alcohol drinkers expect to be sleeping on a “goon pillow” tonight. (If you don’t know what this is, refer to Tip #4 here)

– David Boon, one of Australia’s favorite professional athletes, is famous for drinking 52 beers on an international flight between Sydney and London in 1989. Boonie will neither confirm nor deny this story, but there were enough witnesses to confirm that it actually happened.

– Australia’s favorite Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, once held the world record for chugging beer! Bob drank a Yard Glass of Ale in just 11 seconds! (Whenever people saw Bob on the street or at public events, they would ask him to crush a beer, and he sometimes did… Here’s a few videos of this. Unfortunately, Bob died last year, may he rest in peace)

 

 

– Another Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, is famous for something different… He went for a swim one morning at a local beach in Melbourne, and was never found again. Some say he is dead, and others believe he is still out there swimming to this day, even though he would be 111 years old by now!

– Speaking of beaches, Australia has 10,685 of them. If you visited 1 beach per day, it would take you 29 years to visit every single one. Anyone up for that challenge!?

– Australia has had 5 Prime Ministers in the last 10 years. PMs are supposed to serve a Full Term of 3 years in office, but nobody lately has seemed to last that long. This is due to being voted out mid-term by their own political party.

– The shortest game of Cricket lasted only 50 minutes, when England beat Australia in 1926.

– 3 years later, in 1929, was the longest game of Cricket for Australia. It lasted 8 days! Australia won against England in that looong game.

– The Great Emu War:  Back in 1932, a bunch of Aussie farmers were complaining about large numbers of wild emus invading their towns and eating all their crops. The government didn’t know what to do… so they called in the Australian Military! On November 2nd, they declared war against the flock of flightless birds. Troops were deployed everywhere with machine guns, but the emus were smart and crafty. After 6 days at battle, the military were outsmarted, and withdrew from the fight. True story, read more here.

 

 

– In 1788, England began shipping convicts to Australia. This continued for 80 years.

– Those convicts had kids, and their kids had kids, and then even more kids. The population has now grown to over 24 million criminals!

– Thanks to the invention of flying, in 1935 international flights started to be offered out of Australia. This means that for the last 80 years, the convicts have all been leaving Australia and settling in other areas of the world…

– There could even be an Aussie convict descendent in the city where you live right now! If you happen to meet one, stay calm, and just buy them a beer. Not only is it a nice gesture, it’s Australia Day, after all!

Cheers, and have a good one!
– Joel