History GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff / RealLife

* In several European countries, the sauropod dinosaur ''[[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursSaurischianDinosaurs Diplodocus]]'' is seen as THE archtypical sauropod, as opposed to ''Brontosaurus'' or ''Apatosaurus'' or, after ''Franchise/JurassicPark'', ''Brachiosaurus'', no doubt thanks to fossil casts being sent to several national museums in the 1900's by billionaire Andrew Carnegie. It's probably why the British-made ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' features ''Diplodocus'' in the central role of the second episode set in the Morrison Formation of Colorado. Even ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'', which is produced by the British company Creator/{{Rare}}, features a ''Diplodocus'' as the token sauropod for the {{Prehistoria}} world Terrydactyland.

* Many kinds of crops and livestock have been fundamental to economies far away from their origins. Several Old World species (wheat, sugarcane, grapes, bananas, coffee, cotton, citrus fruits, bananas, cattle, and sheep) have been most extensively produced by New World countries (sheep in Australia & New Zealand, cotton in the DeepSouth, sugar in the Caribbean, etc). Potatoes invert the above by being South American crops that became a staple in Europe (native to the high Andes, they grow well in cool climates).

* Gingers are received way more positively in North and Latin America than in Europe. In Europe, natural redheads have so many stigmas attached to them that they're considered a minority group. But in the Western Hemisphere, those perceptions didn't carry over, and as a result, gingers are seen as little more than a rare sight and are even [[HeroesPreferRedheads fetishized]] by many.

** The country that loves South Korea the most: [[spoiler: Ghana]]

* A1 Steak Sauce was, apparently, made in the United Kingdom. That said, it's most widely available in the USA and Canada.

* Guam is an island out the Pacific Ocean that's officially owned by the United States, but it's only a territory, not a state. In fact, there's a lot of US citizens that don't even know Guam exists. However, Guam is seen as a very popular vacation resort in Japan, to the point where Guam actually gets most of its money from Japanese tourists.
** Hawaii is also very popular with Japanese tourists, but they're more likely to hit the shopping malls instead of the beaches. Hawaii rakes in more money from Japanese tourists than it does from Americans. In fact, Hawaii's largest mall, Ala Moana Center, has the only remaining branch of the formerly-Japanese department store Shirokiya. It also helps that there's a large Japanese-American population in Hawaii, which has also heavily influenced Hawaiian cuisine.

** Far Northern regions in North America, such as Alaska and the Yukon Territory, also attract a lot of Japanese tourists who come to see the Northern Lights.

** [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff/{{Sports}} As mentioned on Sports section]], auto racing ''actually'' [[OlderThanTheyThink started out on public roads]], and many race tracks were built afterwards. It was originated from France, but Japan ''really'' takes a piece of cake when it comes to street races.
*** Street racing can be divided into two types; The sanctioned ones take place on temporary, designated, sanctioned street tracks with some essential safety features. While the unsanctioned ones take place on public roads without permissions, and most have an utter lack of safety features that sanctioned street races have. This example refers to the latter despite Japan lacks any designated street circuits.

* Kentucky Fried Chicken has a massive fanbase in Japan, partly due to the fact that a bucket of KFC is a massive staple of Christmas dinner over there. Heck, it's even to the point where there's a KFC buffet in Tokyo that can have queues upwards of 100 customers long.

* Convenience Stores, known as "konbinis", have been primarily tolerated in the US, particularly in urban areas, highway rest stops, and gas stations, since their creation in the 1920s, but they are a massive thing in Japan. As Convenience Stores sell tons of actually amazing products in their Japanese versions, many consider the Japanese Konbini to be leagues better than American versions.

** The popularity of convenience stores in Japan can probably be explained by the small refrigerator sizes. Since living space is so expensive, a minibar-sized fridge can seem luxurious. The small sizes mean that Japanese people have to shop for food more often. It's much easier to go to 7-eleven than a supermarket, especially when so many people don't have cars.

* Woolworths - its cheap-prices/low-quality business model, as well as their random assortment of products and disorganised shop layout, saw them go out of business in the UK and US. In Australia, however, they are part of the major supermarket duopoly, with a completely different customer base and thousands of shops across the country.
** The British Woolworth was broken off the American one in 1982. For reference, the American chain went under in 1997 after struggling for many years, but fragments of it live on in the forms of shopping mall mainstays Foot Locker, Claire's, and Champs Sports. Its demise was largely due to the "dime store" concept becoming defunct in two ways: the dollar store (e.g. Dollar Tree) and price-point retailers like Family Dollar and Dollar General took its place in downtowns and smaller towns, while UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} rendered the dime store obsolete everywhere else.

* There is a little-known fact about the history of rice cookers -- the first rice cooker, released by Toshiba in 1956, requires a small amount of water to be poured in the space between the sleeve and the insert to ensure uniform cooking and also act as a kind of timer. Technologically it was rendered obsolete in the following year when Panasonic introduced what is now the basic design for rice cookers worldwide - except for in Taiwan. Up to this day, Taiwanese knockoffs of Toshiba's 1956 design still dominated the market and is considered the single appliance that identifies Taiwanese cooking - to wit, one can safely assume any young Taiwanese that is going to study overseas ''will'' have one in their luggage.

* ''Blockbuster Video'': While the American physical branch was closed in 2013, the franchise was strong in Mexico until 2015, partly because Mexicans didn't embraced the video-on-demand services as much as Americans have, albeit this changed when Blockbuster changed his name in Mexico to The B Store and later folded definitively, leaving Creator/{{Netflix}}, Claro Video, Amazon Prime Video, and other streaming services as the only alternatives to watch video in Mexico, besides buying the films directly on stores.

** The country that loves The United States Of America the most: [[spoiler: The Philippines]]

** The countries that love Canada the most: [[spoiler: France]] and [[spoiler: The United States Of America]]

** The country that loves The United Kingdom the most: [[spoiler: The United States Of America]]

** The absence of the stigma attached to Walmart and shopping there has been cited as one of [[TroubledProduction the many reasons]] why Target's attempt to expand into Canada was a flop: while in the US, [[TheMoralSubstitute many people shop at to avoid shopping at Walmart]], Canadians had no similar compunctions about Walmart to drive them into's Target's arms. This makes it ironic that in Canada, the public perception of the two U.S. retail giants is essentially flipped.

* Has happened twice with Sudoku. It was first invented in America in 1979 as "Number Place" [[note]](some French newspapers featured similar puzzles as early as the late 19th century)[[/note]] and was pretty obscure. However, in 1986, it achieved popularity in Japan. In 2005, the puzzle, as well as the name itself, achieved worldwide popularity. Pretty much the same thing happened with Kakuro.

* UsefulNotes/{{Kmart}}, which has struggled in the discount department store field since Walmart's rise to power in the early-mid 90s (including complete withdrawal from Canada, Mexico, Alaska, and most of the South), maintains a degree of popularity in some areas. Most notably, the largest UsefulNotes/{{Kmart}} in the chain is located in Guam, which has exactly zero Walmart stores. It's also still possible to find a few scattered small towns here and there that still have a Kmart but no Walmart (for instance, there are three in the Walmart-less Florida Keys, and several smaller towns in the Midwest still have only Kmart; Matamoras, PA, is also a rare town these days where Kmart ''is'' the local big-box store, serving not just it but neighboring Port Jervis, NY). The Australian division is also popular, but no longer under the same ownership.

* Supercenter chain Meijer is so popular in its native Michigan that towns and cities as large as Ann Arbor (which has a population of 113,000+), and even the state's largest city, Detroit, are ''completely'' devoid of Walmart.

* In his book ''Whatever You Do, Don't Run'', Botswana safari guide Peter Allison notes that German tourists have an inexplicable fondness for warthogs (or ''warzenshwein") and like to count them for some reason.

* Saunas are normally associated with Scandinavia and Russia, but have become increasingly popular in Japan. They fit in very well with Japan's already existing culture of communal bathing, and relatiely cheap and easy to build and operate.

* {{Playboy Bunn|y}}ies are ubiquitous in Japanese media, so much so that the Anime and Manga folder of this trope specifies that even series that wouldn't normally warrant them would implement bunny suits in official art. Despite it being an IconicOutfit in the United States, it's too specifically [[CharacteristicTrope associated]] with ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' magazine to have as much presence in the media.

* For most of its last several decades of existence, the formerly-nationwide A & P supermarkets (Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company) were largely concentrated near its origins in New York. However, a small cluster of stores existed in New Orleans until very close to the chain's demise (including their longest continuously operational one in the French Quarter), and they operated Farmer Jack stores in Michigan until 2007. The Canadian arm also operated stores as late as 2009.

** The $100 bill. Not commonly used in its home country due to the rise of electronic payment, it's suspectability to being counterfeited (many restaurants and Mom-and-Pop stores won't take them for this reason alone), and it's association with crime. Despite this, it's the most printed denomination of U.S. currency. Why? Because approximately 80% of the U.S.'s $100 bill supply end up overseas due to its popularity as a reserve currency, mostly in countries where bank failures are something to be afraid of.

* The American dollar coin. Far more widely used in Ecuador than in the U.S. (Ecuador also uses the American dollar.)
** And not just any coin but the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sacagawea_dollar_obverse.png Sacagawea dollar]] coin representing a Native American woman carrying her child on her back. In fact, some people believe its Ecuadorian coinage as that scene is something you will see more frequently in Ecuador than in the US.

[[folder:Big Everywhere Else]]
!!Companies and products

!!Culture and entertainment

!!Locations

!!Plants and Animals

!!Miscellaneous

* A fascinating, obscure bit of American religious sociology is that the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%CA%BC%C3%AD_Faith Baha'i Faith]] has an unexpected stronghold in rural UsefulNotes/SouthCarolina. There are roughly 10,000 active Baha'is in South Carolina, out of around 100,000 in the entire country. This is generally credited to a burst of missionary activity the faith engaged in toward the end of TheSixties, targeting dispossessed rural communities. With the state still in flux at the end of the Jim Crow era, the Baha'i message celebrating unity and diversity struck a huge chord among young people, especially in the Black community, and Baha'i numbers exploded in the state.

* UsefulNotes/RutherfordBHayes is generally considered an unremarkable president in his native United States, but he's considered a legendary hero among citizens of Paraguay, due to him giving them a leg up during the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheTripleAlliance.

* UsefulNotes/RutherfordBHayes is generally considered an unremarkable president in his native United States, but he's considered a legendary hero among citizens of Paraguay, due to him giving them a leg up during the UsefulNote/WarOfTheTripleAlliance.

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* The day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, has become a popular shopping day in the UK despite Thanksgiving being an American holiday, and thus, the day having no actual significance in the UK outside of being the day before the last Saturday of November. American retailers offering Black Friday specials online led UK businesses to adopt the concept, even in Wales (where it's called ''Dydd Gwener y Gwario Gwirion''--"Silly Spending Friday"). By 2016 Brits spent over a billion pounds on Black Friday. It's also become a big day in Canada, despite Canadian Thanksgiving falling in early October, though the cultural ties between the US and Canada make that situation more understandable. Other countries like Switzerland are picking up the concept as well.

** The absence of the stigma attached to Walmart and shopping there has been cited as one of [[TroubledProduction the many reasons]] why Target's attempt to expand into Canada was a flop: while in the US, [[TheMoralSubstitute many people shop at to avoid shopping at Walmart]], Canadians had no similar compunctions about Walmart to drive them into's Target's arms. This makes it ironic that in Canada, the pubic perception of the two U.S. retail giants is essentially flipped.

** Far Northern regions in North America, such as Alaska and the Yukon Territory, attract a lot of Japanese tourists who come to see the Northern Lights.

* It's widely-known that dinosaurs make everything better, but Japan especially agrees. Dinosaur exhibitions are frequently held throughout, DinosaurMedia is quite common, there's even a company that specializes in animatronic dinosaurs, and this is the country that gave us ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}''. In fact, Japan ''really'' loves dinosaurs that they're willing to strive for accuracy, to the point of not being [[GoofyFeatheredDinosaur afraid to feature feathered dinosaurs]] (even ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' gets portrayed with feathers fairly often there), and they tend to feature specifically Japanese species, like the Early Cretaceous theropod ''Fukuiraptor'', although the Late Cretaceous plesiosaur ''Futabasaurus''[[note]]not a dinosaur, but still a Mesozoic reptile[[/note]] also gets a lot of love there.
** One specific prehistoric creature that gets a lot of love in Japan is the Cambrian stem-arthropod and early apex predator ''Anomalocaris'', probably one of the most iconic pre-dinosaur prehistoric animals over there. With the animal inspiring a bunch of creature designs in anime and video games, most famously Anorith and Armaldo in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''.
* While insects are seen as {{Squick}}y, filthy, and monstrous vermin in the West, the Japanese ''[[FriendToBugs love]]'' [[BeetleManiac bugs]]. Many insects, such as fireflies and cicadas, are held in high regard; some are eaten as delicacies (like grasshoppers and wasps, including even the infamous Asian Giant Hornet, which is viewed no differently in Japan than how westerners might perceive a regular wasp); and beetles and mantises are popular pets. BugCatching is also a popular summer activity amongst children, being the inspiration for ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''. Likewise, Japanese popular culture is loaded with insect creatures based on popular species in the country (think Film/{{Mothra}} or the countless Bug-type Pokémon out there) or heroic characters adorned with insect motifs like Franchise/KamenRider. [[https://aeon.co/essays/japanese-culture-conquered-the-human-fear-of-creepy-crawlies This article]] explains it quite well and analyzes the phenomenon too.

* Werewolves or wolves are very popular in Japan, which is one of the largest Non-Western markets for wolf-themed media. Case in point, ''Literature/OneStormyNight'' and ''Anime/RingingBell'' and ''Anime/WolfChildren'' are one of the most popular wolf-themed Anime and Manga in the country, and characters, like Wolffy, Wolnie, and Wilie from ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'' certainly caught the eyes of Japanese-viewing audience on Website/YouTube.

* The Spanish ''real de a ocho'' (piece of eight or Spanish dollar) was the first global currency in the 18th and early 19th centuries, due to its stable value and high silver content. It was legal tender in the United States until 1857. In East Asia, it was a popularly known as the "fat Buddha" (in reference to the portrait of Charles IV of Spain) and the first Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan in the 1870s and 1880s had their value paired to it.