Inventors, dinosaurs, and even a predecessor to Steem: You probably never heard of these facts about my country, which is more famous for the Asado, the Tango and the Pampas.
1. The largest dinosaur of the world was an Argentine
The Argentinosaurus was the world's largest dinousaur. It was found in Patagonia in 1989 and first described in 1993. It was between 30 and 39 m long, 15 to 16 m tall and had a weight of 55 to 90 tonnes - more than a Blue Whale.
2. Anarchism has a great tradition
Argentina in the 21th century has a fairly standard political system, with Centrist, Center-left and Conservative parties predominating and very small Communist and Libertarian minorities.
Things were much more interesting in the early twentieth century. About 10 % of the population adhered to Anarchist ideas in 1910. There was even an #Anarchist revolution in Patagonia in 1920 and 1921, but the Army was sent to throw it down and the leaders of the movement were killed. Héctor Olivera's 1974 film Patagonia Rebelde tells these tragic incidents.
3. Rosario has Latin America's largest club and casino
Rosario is a beautiful port city in eastern Argentina and often is called its most libertarian and diverse place, even more than the capital, Buenos Aires. Particularly it's known for its awesome #nightlife and its beautiful people.
The Madame (or MDM) club in the north of the city center is said to be the largest nightclub of South America and has seven dancefloors on four floors. And in the south there is the City Center Casino with 2000 one-armed bandits, also the largest of the continent.
4. Argentina's inventors: From the Ballpoint Pen to the Coronary Artery Bypass
Argentina has been home to many great thinkers and inventors.
Laszlo Biró, a Hungarian immigrant, invented the modern ballpoint pen after fleeing from Germany in the Second World War.
Even more important for many people is the Argentine cardiac surgeon René Favaloro, who pioneered the currently used variant of the coronary artery bypass. Tragic: He commited suicide in 2000.
5. The Whuffie Bank: Steem's first predecessor?
The #Whuffie is an reputation-based currency based on upvotes and downvotes. Doesn't this sound familiar? ;-) The original concept was invented by the sci-fi author Cory Doctorow.
OK, Doctorow actually is a Canadian. But it was an Argentine guy, Santiago Siri, that tried to bring the concept into reality first. The Whuffie Bank was founded in 2009 as a non-profit. He based this currency in Facebook and Twitter social signals. Unfortunately, his approach failed.
Eventually, Siri moved on and dived into the cryptocurrency world. He today is a well-known Bitcoiner and one of the partners of the Latin American Bitcoin exchange bitex.la.
6. Chubut: The best place to meet whales and dolphins
Argentina has an enormously long coastline on the Atlantic - it's 4.500 km long. In the Chubut Province in Southern Argentina there is a large peninsula called Valdés, known for its beautiful fauna and flora.
Puerto Pirámides, the only town of the Peninsula, is known as one of the best places in the world to watch #whales and #dolphins. Two species are particularly interesting in Chubut: the beautiful black-white-coloured Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) and the Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis).
That's just a small introduction to my country. If you know more interesting and surprising facts about Argentina, you can post them in the comments :)