Carlos Romuald Gardel is considered by Argentines to be the greatest of those who ever sang the tango and one of the greatest composers of the genre; he permanently introduced lyrics into Argentine tango. In 1917 he recorded Mi noche triste, the first tango written specifically as a sung piece. Gardel's tango “Por una cabeza” can be heard in such films as True Lies (Arnold Schwarzenegger's dance scenes), Scent of a Woman with Al Pacino, Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton, and in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List. ¹⁾

The first Spanish winners expected to find silver in Argentina. The country's name comes from the Latin Argentum (silver - Ag). Although there are no silver resources in the La Plata Basin, the Spaniards came to the area lured by legends of silver mountains. La Plata literally means “Silver River.” ²⁾

Emilio Marcos de Palma (born January 7, 1978, in Antarctica) is an Argentine citizen and the first known person to be born in Antarctica. This fact was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. Palma was the first person to be born so far south of the Earth. ³⁾

The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra sucia) was a period of government terror in Argentina from 1976 to 1982. In 1976, General Jorge Videla's right-wing military dictatorship seized power in Argentina in a coup. The military began terrorizing the opposition. Arrests, torture, and murder became the norm. The crimes of the military junta are called genocide in Argentina today (about 30 thousand victims). ⁴⁾

Gran Chaco is a sparsely populated semi-arid region divided between Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. These countries were not particularly interested in the region until the 1930s when a rumor spread that it was rich in oil. A dispute over boundaries led Paraguay and Bolivia, to war over the area (1932-1935), known as the Gran Chaco War. ⁵⁾