10 Interesting Facts
- With at least 75 million foreign tourists per year, France is the most visited country in the world and maintains the third-largest income in the world from tourism.
- France celebrates July 14th as its Fête Nationale (Independence Day), which is the founding of its current Constitutional Monarchy, or the First Republic. The celebration actually commemorates the storming of the Bastille Prison on July 14, 1789, which sparked the French Revolutionary War.
- Louis XIX was king of France for just 20 minutes.
- Crayola is a French word that means “oily chalk.” Alice Binney, wife of Crayola founder Edward Binney, combined the word craie (chalk) with ola (a shortened form of the French oléagineux, meaning oily).
- The Bayeux Tapestry, created in the 1070s, shows the story of how William the Conqueror and his Norman forces conquered England in 1066. The Bayeux Tapestry is considered one of France’s national treasures.
- French President Charles de Gaulle is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having survived 32 assassination attempts
- A bronze star set in the pavement across from the main entrance of Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris marks the exact location of Point Zero of all French roads.
- The blue-green veins in Roquefort cheese are the seeds of specially-cultivated microscopic mushrooms from caves in Roquefort, France.
- Almost called the atome (atom), rather than the bikini, the scanty two-piece bathing suit was the 1946 creation of Cannes fashion designer Jacques Heim and French automotive engineer Louis Réard.
- France’s flag has three equal vertical bands of blue (hoist side), white, and red. Known as Le Drapeau Tricolore (French Tricolors), the origin of the flag dates to 1790 and the French Revolution when the “ancient French color” of white was combined with the blue and red colors of the Paris militia.
Works Cited
http://facts.randomhistory.com/france-facts.html
http://facts.randomhistory.com/france-facts.html