More Unusual Facts about Australia.

Welcome to another of our pages of unusual facts about Australia.

As everybody knows, Australia is populated, for the most part, by immigrants, here are a few unusual facts about Australian immigration.

• Mungo man - In 1974, scientists discovered the Mungo man - a primate who was ritually buried 40-60,000 years ago with his hands covering his penis. ANU's John Curtin School of Medical Research found that the skeleton's genetic material contained a small section of mitochondrial DNA. It was analysed and compared to the genetic material from nearly 3,500 people; including Neanderthals, Asians, ancient Aborigines, and present-day Aborigines. It was found that Mungo Man's DNA lacked a gene that was common to all the other samples. Consequently, unlike every other known person on the planet, or unearthed skeleton, Mungo man can not be traced to humans that left Africa any time in the last 200,000 years.

• Robust - The first humans travelled across the sea from Indonesia about 70,000 years ago. These people are called 'Robust' by archaeologists because of their heavy-boned physique.

• Gracile - 50, 000 years ago, the more slender 'Gracile' people; the ancestors of Australian Aborigines, arrived in Australia. At the time of their settlement/invasion, the Gracile were the most technologically advanced people in the world.

• Convicts of African descent - Convicts comprised many different racial groups and many of these minority racial groups were very prominent in colonial society. Australia's first bushranger was a Convict of African descent. Another African Convict was arguably Sydney's first eccentrics as he walked around in a top hat and tails.

• Gold Rush - During the Gold rush of the 1850's, Australia received massive waves of migration from China, America, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. An Italian migrant named 'Raefello Carboni' subsequently led the Eureka Rebellion.

• As for Australian people, 92% are of Caucasian descent, 7% of Asian descent and only 1% today are of Aboriginal descent.

• Post World War II - From 1945 through 1996, nearly 5.5 million immigrants settled in Australia.

• Four out of 10 Australians are migrants or the first-generation children of migrants.

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As possibly the world’s foremost sporting nation it is fitting that we include some unusual facts about Australian sporting moments.

• In 1977, Alan Jones scored a surprise victory in the Austrian Grand Prix. Initially officials were going to play the Austrian anthem but then realised that Australia and Austria were not the same country. Unfortunately, they didn't have the Australian anthem so instead a local drunk played "Happy Birthday to You" on a trumpet.

• Sir Donald Bradman averaged 99.94 during his wonderful cricketing career. The next highest average in the entire history of the game is around 60.

• Australian Football was invented by Sydney Tom Wills and Henry Harrison - both were both born in Sydney. Tom played the Aboriginal game of Mangrook as a child and it is believed the native game inspired the rules he initially proposed. The game then took hold in Victoria, and was largely rejected by Sydney.

• In 1983, the yacht "Australia II" ended the Americans 132 year dominance of the America's cup.

• The American 4 X 100 meters freestyle relay team had never been defeated until the 2000 Olympics when they were beaten by the Australians.

• At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, underdog Duncan Armstrong upstaged the great American Matt Biondi to win the 200m freestyle. (Australians like to beat Americans.) The win was made extra enjoyable when American's accused Armstrong of "surfing" the wave created by Biondi. The only thing more enjoyable that seeing Americans defeated, is seeing them bitter as well.

• The Sydney Olympics were labelled the 'best ever games' by IOC president Juan Samaranch. What makes this a particularly sweet accolade for Australians is that they followed the Atlanta Olympics, staged by Americans.

• A Sydney Australian football match was once stopped after fans smuggled a pig into the stadium, wrote the name of a big-boned player on the pig's side and then released it onto the ground.

• Dawn Fraser is the only athlete to ever win gold in the same event at three consecutive Olympics. At the 1964 Olympics, Dawn Fraser marched in the opening ceremony and wore a custom made swimsuit. For these breaches of protocol, the Australian Swimming Federation banned her from competition for ten years.

• Australian Rod Laver is the only male tennis player to win the grand slam and he did it twice.

• Jeff Thompson, a cricketer, once bowled a ball that was calculated to be at least 160 kms per hour which makes him the fastest bowler of all time. He is reported to have said that the sound of the bowl hitting the batsmen skull was music to his ears.

• When charging from their trenches, Diggers would yell "Up their Cazaly" in tribute to the ruckmen Roy Cazaly. "Up there Cazaly" was later made into a song that reached number one on the charts.

• Susie Maroney is an Australian swimmer who from time to time feels inclined to swim long distances, like Cuba to Florida!!.

• The day of the Melbourne Cup (a horse race!) is a public holiday in Melbourne.

Here are some unusual facts about Australian cities and states.

• Sydney, Australia's first and largest city was also known as Sin City. Sydney wanted to be Capital of Australia but its convict stigma counted against it.

• Melbourne also wanted to be the Capital of Australia on the basis that it was the home to the Australian establishment and was not founded by Convicts. (Founded by John Batman; son of a Convict)

• Because Sydney and Melbourne kept bickering over which city should be the capital of Australia, it was decided that neither of them would be capital and instead, a new capital, Canberra, would be built in the middle of them both.

• Hobart is Australia's second oldest city. The too-frequent visits by French explorers concerned the British authorities and in 1803 it was decided that a colony should be established on the island to secure British territorial claims. Convicts were then sent.

• Newcastle's coal deposits were discovered by a party hunting escaped convicts. Sydney's difficult convicts were then sent to Newcastle to mine the coal. Known as an egalitarian city where miners and winemakers share a beer or a fine drop.

• Adelaide’s claim to fame is that it is a city that has lots of churches. Adelaide is the capital of the only Australian state never to have received convicts.

• Western Australia was the last Australian state to receive convicts. It has been said most of them now work in parliament or business.

• In 1824 a southern state governor sent a party of difficult convicts to found a new settlement in Queensland. These days, southern state children send their difficult parents to Queensland to retire. Also a mecca for Southern State teenagers who upon finishing school, head north for a week of booze and debauchery.

• The island state of Tasmania is one of the world's major suppliers of legal opiate products. The government maintains strict controls over areas of opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate; major consumer of cocaine and amphetamines.

• The 'dingo fence' in Australia is the longest fence in the world, and is about twice as long as the Great Wall of China.

How about some unusual facts about our colourful Australian language?

• 'Waltzing Matilda' the title of Australia's most famous song, is German for 'carrying a backpack'.

• Australians refer to lazy people as 'bludgers'. The word is derived from 'bludgeoner' which is a prostitute's standover man.

• A larrikin is a comical, roguish individual who is prone to rowdy and unruly behaviour. The term was coined from an Irish policeman in a Melbourne court, claiming the prisoner was "larkin about".

• Australians refer to English people as Poms or Pome. This is an acronym for Prisoners of Mother England. May have originally been an abbreviation for pomegranate which is Convict rhyming slang for immigrant.

• The name Australia comes from the Latin Terra Australis Incognito which means the Unknown Southern Land.

• Australians may refer to Americans as 'Seppos'. This is an abbreviation for 'Septic Tank' which is rhyming slang for 'Yank'.

• Australians may refer to fools, idiots and hopeless cases as Drongos. Drongo was a 1920's racehorse that showed promise but never won anything in 37 starts. In the 1940s, the term was applied to recruits of the Australian airforce.

• Australian servicemen are referred to as Diggers. This term comes from miners on the Australian goldfields of the 1800's.

• The name for the Australian marsupial Kangaroo came about when some of the first white settlers saw this strange animal hopping along and they asked the Aborigines what it was called. They replied with 'Kanguru', which in the native language meant 'I don't know' .

• The city of Melbourne has a cultural festival using the Aboriginal word Moomba. It seems the festival's initial organisers asked the local Aborigines to suggest a name, and were told that moomba means 'lets get together and have fun.' The grateful organisers subsequently used the name. In hindsight, the organisers really should have been suspicious that 'lets get together and have fun' could be expressed in two syllables. In reality, 'moom' means 'bum', 'buttocks', or 'anus', while the suffix 'ba' means 'in', 'at' or 'on'. So moomba actually means 'in the bum.'

Don’t forget to visit our other ‘facts’ pages at:

More unusual facts about Australia.

Even more unusual facts about Australia.

If you would like to add any unusual facts about Australia that we’ve missed out please write to us through our ‘contact us’ page and we’ll do our best to include your contributions,

John.

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