watch all 73 of them right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n16: At Brighton 1974, points were awarded to Sweden\u2019s winning entry, Waterloo by ABBA, from every country except one: the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
17: In 2016, the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast live in the US for the first time.<\/p>\n
18: For its entry to Oslo 2010, Drip Drop, Azerbaijan hired the choreographer behind Beyonc\u00e9’s 2008 global smash (and dance craze) Single Ladies to work on the performance.<\/p>\n
19: Dublin is the city that has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest more times than any other, with the Irish capital welcoming Europe on six occasions.<\/p>\n
20: None of the artists behind Luxembourg\u2019s five Eurovision Song Contest victories actually came from there. Four were of French origin and one hailed from Greece.<\/p>\n
21: Portugal had to wait a whole 49 attempts before finally winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 2017, doing so with a record-holding points tally of 758.<\/p>\n
22: Switzerland has contributed entries to the Eurovision Song Contest in all four of its official languages: French, German, Italian and Romansh.<\/p>\n
23: From the first Eurovision Song Contest at Lugano 1956 all the way up until the 1998 Contest in Birmingham, all performances were accompanied by a live orchestra.<\/p>\n
24: The highest number of countries to have entered the Eurovision Song Contest in a single year is 43, which happened in 2008, 2011 and 2018.<\/p>\n
25: Zdob \u0219i Zdub are the only act to have qualified from the Semi-Finals to the Grand Final on three occasions. The band did it for Moldova across three decades, too, in 2005, 2011 and 2022. See you in 2033, lads!<\/p>\n
26: A year before their iconic victory at Brighton 1974, ABBA tried to represent Sweden at the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest, but only managed to finish in third place at the Swedish pre-selection, with Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal).<\/p>\n
27: Norway has finished in last place more than any other country, doing so on 12 occasions, most recently in 2024.<\/p>\n
28: Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit by Gina G, which represented the United Kingdom at Oslo 1996, went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award in the US and remains the last British entry to top the UK singles chart.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
29: Rotterdam 2021 was the first time since Bergen 1986 that every song in the Top 3 was by one of the seven countries to have participated in the Contest’s first edition in 1956.<\/p>\n
30: Malta is the country that has been waiting the longest for a Eurovision Song Contest win, having first entered in 1971 and still not achieved victory.<\/p>\n
31: But it’s Cyprus that has had the highest number of Eurovision Song Contest participations without victory: 42 to Malta’s 38.<\/p>\n
32: Until 1971, no more than three people were allowed on the Eurovision Song Contest stage during each performance. Today, it’s no more than six.<\/p>\n
33: Celebrated French musician and filmmaker Serge Gainsbourg composed Luxembourg\u2019s 1965 winner, Poup\u00e9e De Cire, Poup\u00e9e De Son. He also wrote for Monaco in 1967 and France in 1991.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
34: Katja Ebstein has earned a place in the Eurovision history books as the only performer to have placed inside the Top 3 across three different Contests, each time for Germany.<\/p>\n
35: The 1968 Eurovision Song Contest held at the Royal Albert Hall was the very first to be broadcast in colour.<\/p>\n
36: Helsinki 2007 marked a new technical milestone: following tests in Athens one year before, it became the first Eurovision Song Contest fully produced and broadcast in high definition. Finnish broadcaster YLE delivered the show in 1080i HD with 5.1 surround sound.<\/p>\n
37: In its golden era between 1995 and 2001, Croatia achieved six Top 10 finishes across seven Contests. Since then, the country has only landed inside the Top 10 once, with Baby Lasagna giving Croatia its best result to date in 2024, performing runner-up Rim Tim Tagi Dim.<\/p>\n
38: Down Under, Australia has broadcast every Eurovision Song Contest since 1983. Its dedication to the Contest was rewarded with an invitation to participate at the 60th edition in 2015, and broadcaster SBS has competed every year since.<\/p>\n
39: The theme music heard at the start of every Eurovision Song Contest is Te Deum, by the French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
40: Liverpool 2023 was the first edition of the Contest where there wasn’t a key change featured in any of the competing entries.<\/p>\n
41: The demo of Ireland’s 1993 Eurovision winner, In Your Eyes by Niamh Kavanagh, was recorded by a then-unknown session singer Idina Menzel.<\/p>\n
42: At Rotterdam 2021, for the first time since\u00a0Dublin 1995, none of the Top 3 songs were performed in English. Italy\u2019s winner by M\u00e5neskin was performed in Italian, while Switzerland (second place) and France (third place) were both performed in French.<\/p>\n
43: In August 2023, the winner of Tel Aviv 2019, Arcade by Duncan Laurence for the Netherlands, became the first Eurovision song to surpass the one billion streams milestone on Spotify.<\/p>\n
44: Portugal’s performance at Brighton 1974 was used by the Portuguese military as the signal to start the Carnation Revolution.<\/p>\n
45: Monaco has more Eurovision Song Contest wins (1) to its name than Olympic medals (0).<\/p>\n
46: At Madrid 1969, the world-famous surrealist artist Salvador Dal\u00ed created the official Contest poster and promotional materials.<\/p>\n
47: Poland’s Justyna Steczkowska holds the record for the longest gap between participations, representing her country in 1995 and 30 years later in 2025.<\/p>\n
48: The shortest song in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest was Finland\u2019s entry in 2015, clocking in at just 1 minute and 27 seconds.<\/p>\n
49: Italy\u2019s lengthy entry in 1957 – Corde Della Mia Chitarra by Nunzio Gallo, clocking in at 5 minutes and 9 seconds – was well over the recommended limit set at the inaugural Contest in 1956. Despite protests, it was not disqualified, but the incident led to the now-familiar three-minute rule – a decision that became one of Contest\u2019s most enduring traditions.<\/p>\n
50: In 2023, the Rest of the World vote was introduced, so that fans outside participating countries could vote for their favourite songs. When the results are announced, the Rest of the World vote is equal to that of one participating country.<\/p>\n
51: Prior to the Rest of the World vote, the only time a non-participating country has been allowed to give points was in 2006, after Serbia & Montenegro backed out of participation less than two months before the Contest would take place in Athens.<\/p>\n
52: In their first 20 appearances at the Eurovision Song Contest, the United Kingdom only finished outside of the Top 4 twice.<\/p>\n
53: Romania\u2019s entry to Helsinki 2007 had six languages written into its lyrics. English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French and Romanian were all performed during the song. Moldova matched that number in 2026, with Romanian, Italian, Latin, English, Spanish and French being heard in Viva, Moldova! by Satoshi.<\/p>\n
54: At Bergen 1986, Belgium claimed its sole win to date with J\u2019aime la Vie, performed by 13-year-old Sandra Kim. It made her the youngest winner in Eurovision history – a record that will likely stand forever due to the increased minimum age requirement that was implemented not long after.<\/p>\n
55: The United Kingdom hosted the Eurovision Song Contest for a ninth time in 2023. It is the country that has hosted the Contest more than any other, despite having earned ‘just’ five victories.<\/p>\n
56: Portugal in 1964 and Lithuania in 1994 are the only countries to have scored ‘nul points’ on their Eurovision Song Contest debut.<\/p>\n
57: The iconic burlesque artist Dita Von Teese has performed on the Eurovision Song Contest stage. At Moscow 2009, she played the part of Miss Kiss Kiss Bang in Germany\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
58: Nel Blu Depinto De Blu finished in third place for Italy at Hilversum 1958, but went on to win Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the very first edition of the Grammy Awards in the US, where it spent five weeks at Number 1.<\/p>\n
59: In the week following Cha Cha Cha’s second-place finish at Liverpool 2023, language-learning app Duolingo saw a popularity spike of 12,000 new people beginning a course in Finnish.<\/p>\n
60: As well as finishing in third place for Estonia as the lead artist in 2002, Anna Sahlene has also finished in second place as a backing vocalist for Australia in 2016 and in first place as a backing singer for Sweden in 1999, giving her a full haul of Eurovision podium medals.<\/p>\n
61: Sam Ryder’s silver-medal placing at Turin 2022 with SPACE MAN extended the United Kingdom\u2019s record for most second-place finishes, bringing it to 16.<\/p>\n
62: Some superstars come to the Eurovision Song Contest to perform as an interval act, such as Madonna (2019), Justin Timberlake (2016) and Aqua (2001). But some interval acts go on to become superstars! The Riverdance show, which originated as Ireland\u2019s interval act at Dublin 1994, has now been seen by over 30 million people across six continents.<\/p>\n
63: Elton John attempted to represent the United Kingdom as a songwriter in 1969, ultimately finishing in last place at the national final with his song I Can’t Go on Living Without You performed by Lulu. The song that won the pre-selection (Boom Bang-a-Bang, also by Lulu) would go on to give the country its second Eurovision victory in Madrid.<\/p>\n
64: Just two countries have scored Eurovision victory on their first attempt: Switzerland at the inaugural Contest in 1956 and Serbia at their first outing in 2007.<\/p>\n
65: Ireland’s song for Athens 2006, Every Song Is a Cry For Love by Brian Kennedy, was the 1,000th entry to be performed on the Eurovision stage.<\/p>\n
66: On the results scoreboard, Spain is the only country to have finished in every position from 1st to 26th.<\/p>\n
67: Belgium has twice submitted an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest that was written in a made-up language. They did it first at Riga 2003 and again for Belgrade 2008.<\/p>\n
68: Bulgaria’s entry at Baku 2012, Love Unlimited by Sofi Marinova, was the first song to have showcased the Azeri language on the Eurovision stage. Other languages debuting in 2012 were Georgian (courtesy of I\u2019m a Joker by Anri Jokhadze for Georgia) and Udmurt (thanks to Buranovskiye Babushk’s Party for Everybody, for Russia).<\/p>\n
69: Germany has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest more times than any other country. 2026 was its 69th Contest out of a possible 70.<\/p>\n
70: All of the countries that won the Eurovision Song Contest between 2001 and 2008 were achieving victory for the very first time. Since then, we’ve only had three first-time winners: Azerbaijan (2011), Portugal (2017) and Bulgaria (2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why are there 73 Eurovision-winning songs when there have only been 70 Eurovision Song Contests? Which city holds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-691552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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