Curated playlist
Member states of the Council of Europe
- United KingdomThe United Kingdom is one country made of four nations. Four capitals share the work.
- ItalyItaly contains two other countries inside its borders. Vatican City and San Marino are surrounded by Italian land.
- MoldovaMoldova is barely larger than Belgium but has the world's largest wine cellar. Mileștii Mici holds the record.
- Georgia (country)In 2005, Georgia fired its entire traffic police force of around 30,000 officers.
- SpainSpain's name may once have meant land of rabbits. Roman coins under Hadrian show a woman with a rabbit at her feet.
- FranceFrance may be named after a tax privilege. One suggestion says only Franks were exempt from taxes.
- DenmarkIn 1658, Swedish armies crossed frozen straits and later besieged Copenhagen for two years.
- AzerbaijanAzerbaijan's name once belonged only to a region of northwestern Iran. Before 1918, no country used it.
- GermanyGermany's Swabian Jura cave held the oldest musical instruments ever found.
- EstoniaEstonia became the first country to allow nationwide binding Internet voting, in 2005.
- NorwayEvery December, Norway gives the United Kingdom a Christmas tree. It thanks Britain for Second World War help.
- BelgiumBelgium once went 589 days without a formal government, a world record at the time.
- ArmeniaArmenia is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia, and its best-loved mountain stands outside its borders. Mount Ararat rises 5,137 meters, or 16,854 feet, making it the highest mountain in the region. It now lies in…
- North MacedoniaNorth Macedonia, a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, received that name on the 12th of February 2019. On that day its government announced that constitutional amendments had taken effect, and it informed the United Nations and its…
- TurkeyAlmost everyone in Turkey lives with some risk of earthquakes. Two major fault lines border the Anatolian plate.
- IcelandWhen the Laki volcano erupted in 1783, the famine that followed killed roughly a quarter of Iceland's population.
- NetherlandsIn the Netherlands, 26% of the country sits below sea level. Dikes, polders and pumping stations keep that land dry.
- SwitzerlandSwitzerland's 1847 civil war lasted less than a month and killed fewer than 100 people. Most deaths were friendly fire.
- UkraineUkraine once gave up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. It sent all the weapons to Russia by 1996.
- Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic holds the oldest ceramic figurine ever found, dated to 29,000 to 25,000 BC.
- LiechtensteinIn March 2007, a Swiss infantry unit of 170 men lost its way during a training exercise and accidentally crossed into Liechtenstein. The soldiers had marched 1.5 kilometres into foreign territory before they realised their mistake and…
- AndorraAndorra is a landlocked country in the eastern Pyrenees, wedged between France to the north and Spain to the south, and its two heads of state are a Catholic bishop and a foreign president. One is the Bishop of Urgell, who serves in…