Did you know that ... ?

• Did you know that famous, world-renowned personalities born in what is now the Czech Republic include composers Antonín Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana, writers Karel Capek, Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, director Milos Forman, religious reformer Jan Hus, educationalist Jan Amos Komenský, opera singer Ema Destinová, psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and athletes Ivan Lendl, Martina Navrátilová, Emil Zátopek, Věra Čáslavská, hockey-player Jaromir Jagr, painters Alfons Mucha, Emil Filla, Toyen and Frantisek Kupka?

• Did you know that US and co-production films that were shot in the Czech Republic include Amadeus, Oliver Twist, Joan of Arc, Mission Impossible, Casino Royale and many others...

• Did you know that Czechs drink the most beer per capita in the world. There are more than 70 breweries in the Czech Republic. The bottom-fermentation method used in beer production, invented by the brewers of Plzeň (Pilsen) in 1842, is now applied across the world.

• Did you know that the first woman ever to become the United States Secretary of State (in 1997), Madeleine Albright, was born in Prague.
  

• Did you know that Jakub Kryštof Rad invented sugar cubes, while another Czech, Josef Ressel, invented the ship propeller.
  

• Did you know that the Czech writer Jaroslav Seifert won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1984; in 1959 Jaroslav Heyrovský won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering and developing polarography.
  

• Did you know that Taťána Kuchařová was crowned Miss World in 2006. Many famous models come from the Czech Republic, including Eva Herzigová, Petra Němcová and Tereza Maxová.
  

• Did you know that the name of the US currency, the dollar, is derived from the Czech coin known as the tolar (thaler), minted from 1519 in Jáchymov, West Bohemia.
  

• Did you know that modern contact lenses were invented by Otto Wichterle, from the town of Prostějov. He is also regarded as the founder of macromolecular chemistry.
  

• Did you know that the first person who wanted to create a union of European rulers (similar to today’s EU) was the Bohemian King George of Podebrady (1420-1471).
  

• Did you know that the first person to categorise blood into four types (A, B, AB, O) was the Czech neurologist Jan Janský in 1906.
  

• Did you know that "The Shop on Main Street" (directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klose) won the Oscar for the best foreign-language film in 1966. The film "Closely Watched Trains" (directed by Jiri Menzel) won an Oscar in 1968 and the most recent Czech film to win an Oscar was "Kolja" (directed by Jan Svěrák) in 1997.
  Twenty-year-old Markéta Irglová also won an Oscar in 2008 for the song for the film "Once".