Thursday

Did you know?

• The Hill's Hoist clothes line became a symbol of Australian home life in the 1950s.

  An original design was patented by Gilbert Toyne in Adelaide in 1926, it was sold in small numbers until Lance Hill's popularised the rotating clothes hoist in the 1950s and 60s.

• Google Maps was created by Sydney-based brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen in 2004.

  At the time the technology required to deliver their idea was still being developed. A year later their idea was acquired by Google.

• The oldest living things on earth - the stromatolites, also call Western Australia home.

• There are 10 times more camels than koalas in Australia.

• Australia has over 10,000 beaches. You could visit a new beach every day for over 27 years.

• Burning Mountain in Australia, has an underground natural coal fire that has been burning for about 6,000 years.

• Lake Hillier in Australia is a bright pink colour and scientists aren't sure why.

• In Australia, there are more kangaroos than people.

• The largest city park in the world is King's Park in Perth.

• The City of Melbourne, Australia, used to be called Batmania

• In 1967, Australia's Prime Minister Harold Holt went to the beach for a swim and was never seen again.

• Broome in Western Australia holds the largest pearl industry in the world.

• 24 rabbits that were introduced to Australia in 1859 multiplied to over 2 million in only ten years.

• “Never Never River“ is the actual name, of an actual river in Australia. It's located in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales.

• Western Australia’s Argyle mine in the state's north is the largest producer of Diamonds in the world.

• Australia exports camels to Saudi Arabia.

• 75% of Australia's living species are unknown to man.

• The world's largest cattle station, Anna Creek Station in Australia, is larger than Israel.

• The black box flight recorder (or ARL Flight Memory Unit) prototype was developed in 1956 by Dr. David Warren, an Australian engineer at the Aeronautical Research Centre in Melbourne.

  Unfortunately the Australian aviation authorities overlooked this invention and the device was developed and manufactured by the Brits and Americans. The black box is now standard equipment on all commercial aircraft.

• A 2013 survey found that 1 in 10 Britons think Australia is further away than the moon.

• Western Australia is the largest state of Australia.

• In 1932 a farmer from Gippsland, Victoria wrote to the boss of Ford Australia asking: "Please make a two-in-one car and truck, something I can go in to church on Sunday, and carry pigs to market on Monday".

  The outcome was a high-sided open or 'utility' grafted onto the back of a two-door Ford V8 Coupe.

• Australia's highway 1 is the world's longest national highway.

• Australia is an island surrounded by more than 8,000 smaller islands.

• Perth became widely known as the City of Lights when American astronaut John Glenn announced to the world that he had seen the city’s lights during his historic space orbit around the Earth in February 1962.

• The top ten of the worlds deadliest snakes are found in Australia.

• The first Australian ultrasound scanner was developed by David Robinson and George Kossoff in 1961.

  This Australian version produced results (known as 'grey-scale ultrasounds') that were technically superior to other scanners. It became the first commercially practical option around the world.

• The last time somebody died from a spider bite in Australia was in 1981.

• East Coast to West Coast of Australia is the distance between London to Moscow.

• Australia’s biggest Property is bigger than Belgium.

• 85% of Australians live within 50km of the Beach.

• In 1880, Melbourne was the richest city in the World and remains a Global powerhouse of Business.

• Gina Rinehart , Australia’s richest woman, earns $1 million every half hour, or $598 every second.

• The first images from the 1969 moon landing were beamed to the rest of the world from Honeysuckle Tracking Station, near Canberra.

• Australia was the second country in the world to allow women to vote (NZ was first ).

• Every week, more than 70 tourists overstay their Visas.

• In 1856, hardworking Stonemasons took action to achieve a World first in a 8-hour working day.

• Larrikin former Prime Minister Bob Hawke set a World Record for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.