Argentina Facts

• When Argentine children lose a baby tooth, they will put it under their pillow at night. During the night, a little mouse called "El Raton Perez" will come and take the tooth, and leave some coins.
• Argentinians pull on the earlobes of the birthday boy or girl for each year of their birthday.
• When girls turn fifteen they usually have a huge party and often dance the waltz with their father and other boys.
• The soil brought down by the rivers flowing into the Río de la Plata has created landfill over the centuries that has allowed Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, to advance several miles into the large river mouth.
• One of Argentina's greatest military leaders was General José Francisco de San Martín, who led an army across the Andes. He was a professional soldier. This national hero helped lead the revolutions against Spanish rule in Argentina (1812), Chile (1818) and Perú (1821).
• Over 2,890,151 people live in Buenos Aires with upwards of 11 million when surrounding suburbs are inlcluded. A huge amount of people commute to Buenos Aires every day.
• Sixty percent of Argentinians own their homes and often build additional rooms rather than moving to larger houses.
• The Argentine currency has changed twice since 1985. In 1985, it changed from the peso to the austral. In 1992, the government introduced the peso argentino.
• MERCOSUR, a South American free trade agreement signed by Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, was formed in 1991 to encourage trade among the four countries and allowed these countries to compete internationally.
• Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio is the only person in the world to win the Formula One Grand Prix automobile race five times: in 1951 and 1954 - 1957.
• Buenos Aires city is divided into barrios (districts or neighborhoods). Palermo is subdivided into several smaller unofficial districts. One of them is nicknamed Villa Freud because so many psychoanalysts and psychologists have offices there.
• Ernesto Guevara, an Argentinian doctor, helped to lead a revolution in Cuba. His frequent use of the word "che", got him his nickname, Che Guevara.
• The highest mountain peak in the Americas is Mount Aconcagua in the Andes Mountains, rising more than 6,900 meters.
• The Nobel prizes have been awarded to five Argentinians: Carlos Saavedra Lamas (1936) and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980) for peace, Bernardo Houssay (1947) for medicine, Luis Federico Leloir (1970) for chemistry and César Milstein (1984) for biology.
• The confiterias (cafes) of Buenos Aires play an important role in social, business and cultural life. In confiterias people meet friends and business associates, workers take coffee breaks, retired people read the papers and theater goers have coffee or dine after a show. Certain confiterias have been associated with particular artistic, literary, political and student groups. The traditional ones are considered historical monuments. Many of them are on Avenida de Mayo. The most famous confiteria is El Cafe Tortoni founded in 1858. It was visited by Albert Eisntein, Jorge Luis Borges and Federico Garcia Lorca, among many others.
• The most important Welsh colony is settled in the province of Chubut in 1865. For four generations, the settlers spoke Welsh, but the language is now dying out in this area. German colonies are found in Santa Fe, Corrientes, Misiones, Cordoba, Neuquén and Buenos Aires.
• Buenos Aires has the second largest Jewish population (over 300,000) in the Americas after New York.
• Argentinians celebrate a Day of Friendship or Friend's Day every July 20th by going out, getting together, giving out presents sending out cards (this is very unusual in Argentina) and calling and texting their friends. This usually leads to temporary breakdown of the mobile network. This day is not a holiday. However, people have to book seats in advance in restaurants, bars and pubs if they want to gather with friends.
• The National Foundation for the Arts has started a campaign to preserve and promote traditional Argentinian arts and crafts such as leather-working, horn-carving, silver-work, ceramics and weaving.
• Just before midnight on January 1st, Argentinians flock to the streets to celebrate with neighbors. Kids light fireworks to ring in the New Year with a bang.
• Llamas are good at climbing mountains. People in the Andes use them to carry things. They also make warm blankets and ponchos from the llama's wool. Llama meat is also common in many dishes in the Northern Andean region of the country.

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