Bet you didn't know

For starters here are some little known facts about Sydney Opera House

1. The sails of the Sydney Opera House were built using three tower cranes made in France for this job, and costing $100,000 each. Sydney Opera House was one of the first buildings constructed in Australia using tower cranes.
2. There are 1,056,006 roof tiles covering an area of approximately 1.62 hectares that sit over the structure. They were made by a Swedish tile company, Höganas, and whenever it rains, the tiles clean themselves.
3. Paul Robeson was the first person to perform at Sydney Opera House. In 1960, he climbed the scaffolding and sang Ol’ Man River to the construction workers as they ate their lunch.

There are some Sydney trivia on http://www.sydneymedia.com.au/html/2282-sydney-trivia.asp But here are some of the more interesting ones...

1. Around 80 per cent of the Australian population lives on or near the coast.
2. Sydney is one of the most multicultural and multilingual cities in the world, with people from more than 180 nations, speaking 140 languages.
3. One of Sydney's most famous beaches - Manly - was named by Captain Arthur Phillip after the "manly" physique of the Aborigines he saw there in 1788.
4. It is a little known fact that Sydney is older than many other great world cities including San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles, Singapore, Toronto and Johannesburg
5. Opened in 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge cost A$20 million - then 10 million pounds sterling - and took until 1988 to pay off. Giving the bridge a complete new coat of paint takes 10 years.
6. The Sydney Opera House cost A$102 million and was paid for through a series of lotteries.
7. Sydney was hit by a freak hailstorm on April 14 1999. Hailstones the size of golf balls and oranges pelted down, smashing roof tiles and damaging cars, particularly in Sydney's eastern suburbs. As a result, more than 100,000 insurance claims were made and the total damage bill was estimated to exceed one billion dollars. Amazingly, only one life was lost - a man drowned when his boat sank due to hailstone damage.
8. When the British first arrived at Sydney Cove, there were approximately 3,000 Aborigines - using three main languages - living in the Sydney area. Through contact and disease, most were wiped out in the first five years of the colony.
9. Today, the Sydney Metropolitan area has the largest Aboriginal population of all Australian cities, with 30,800 Aboriginal people.
10. Legend has it that when the 233 entries for the design of Australia's most famous building, the Sydney Opera House, were being judged, Joern Utzon's winning drawings were plucked from the pile of rejects by one of the judges.
11. Sydney has had only one fatal shark attack since 1937.
12. Many Sydney and Australian restaurants are described as "BYO". This means that the restaurant is not licensed to serve alcohol, but that you can "Bring Your Own" wine with you.

These facts are brought to you by the people who created the City of Sydney website::Sydney Media::City of Sydney and the people who copied those facts and pasted them here, namely

Andrea &
Grace Ong &
Thomas &
Yiliang &
Yuhang