• over 96% voted in a referendum in Latvia for a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to initiate a referendum to dissolve parliament?

Facts on topics related to Dissolution of parliament

Republic of Ireland

• Aer Arann is the only scheduled airline that uses Waterford Airport, which lies close to Tramore Bay in the Republic of Ireland?
• Ireland's annual National Ploughing Championships is Europe's largest agricultural event?
• Ireland's former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern presented an episode of GAA television programme The Road to Croker when the usual host was at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing?
• Irish ballerina Monica Loughman, aged 14, was the first Westerner to dance for the State Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Perm, Russia?
• Irish broadcaster John Creedon is set to learn a musical instrument alongside Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons?
• Irish rugby union commentator Ryle Nugent has worn sheepskin gloves whilst clinging to his microphone "for dear life"?
• Irish journalist Richard Downes secretly entered Zimbabwe disguised as a tourist to film an undercover report for the BBC's Newsnight during the 2008 Zimbabwean presidential election?
• Irish multi-instrumentalist musician R.S.A.G. performs with a virtual band projected onto a screen in a style which has been likened to Gorillaz?
• Irish musicians Lisa Hannigan and Damien Rice dueted on "Unplayed Piano", a Burmese protest song that charted in the UK and was praised by The Independent as "a twinkly and beautiful thing"?
• Irish politician John O'Donoghue resigned as Ceann Comhairle over various expense claims, including a £1 charity donation to UNICEF?

Australia

• "Gizzie" and "Slit" are two alternative common names for the Little Lorikeet of eastern Australia?
• "Heavy Harry", the only working example of the Victorian Railways H class (pictured), was the largest non-articulated steam locomotive ever built in Australia?
• 20-year-old Ryan Gregson is the current Australian record holder in men's 1500 metre run, having broken Simon Doyle's old mark from 1991?
• 67 Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Article XV squadrons were formed during World War II from graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan?
• Adelaide was the first city in Australia to introduce horse trams and the last to discard them for more modern public transport?
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
• Anglican archdeacon Kay Goldsworthy will be Australia's first woman bishop when she is consecrated on 22 May 2008?
• football midfielder Evan Berger was nominated for an informal Australia Day award by his local council for representing Australia in the national under-20 team?
• Australia has a National Public Toilet Map, allowing users to locate the 14,000 public toilets across the country to four decimal places of latitude and longitude?
• Australia's first uranium mine (pictured) opened in 1906 and initially produced radium for Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford?

Parliament of the United Kingdom

• Captain Richard Whitaker Porritt was the first British Member of Parliament to be killed in World War II?
• Derbyshire M.P. George John Venables-Vernon who enthused about Italian literature is the namesake of Vernon County in Australia?
• British architect Rodney Gordon considered running for Parliament, but could not decide which party he wanted to be in?
• British politician David Renton, Baron Renton served for over 60 years in Parliament, representing two parties and then as a life peer, and was the oldest member of the House of Lords when he died?
• Helene Hayman, Baroness Hayman, elected the first Lord Speaker of the House of Lords in 2006, was the first woman to give birth while serving as a British Member of Parliament in the 1970s, and is reported to have been the first woman to breast feed at the Palace of Westminster?
• Lawrence Turner, who presented a Parliamentary petition calling for W. S. Gilbert's copyright on the libretti of Gilbert and Sullivan operas to be extended indefinitely, was the grandson of comic actor George Grossmith who starred in them?
• Robert Crouch led the Parliamentary campaign on the Crichel Down affair involving his constituency, which forced the resignation of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Sir Thomas Dugdale?
• approximately 37,500 Local and Personal Acts have been passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 1539?
• former Anglican clergyman and Liberal Party life peer Tim Beaumont was the only Green Party representative in the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1999 until his death in 2008?
• in 1960, Archbishop Gerald Patrick Aloysius O'Hara became the first papal representative to visit the British Houses of Parliament in four centuries?

Canada

• "Too Hot", Alanis Morissette's breakthrough single in Canada in 1991, was a dance pop song?
• 150 Irish from Indianapolis participated in the Fenian raids, an attempt to invade Canada from Buffalo, New York in 1866?
• 67 Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Article XV squadrons were formed during World War II from graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan?
• Canada and Panama signed the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement on August 11, 2009?
• Canada and the Soviet Union were disqualified from the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships following the Punch-up in Piestany, costing Canada a potential gold medal?
• Canada issues special licence plates available only to war veterans?
• Canada's first interchange was a cloverleaf opened in 1937 at the intersection of Highway 10 and The Middle Road?
• Canada's first paper mill was built in Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, Quebec, in 1803?
• Canada's largest dry-bulk shipping company, The Fednav Group, has a fleet of over eighty ships?
• Canadian actress Cara Duff-MacCormick won a Theatre World Award for her role in Moonchildren, a play about coming of age during the Vietnam War era?

France

• "4 Mots sur un piano", which deals with the theme of a romantic relationship between two men and one woman, was the fifth best-selling single of 2007 in France?
• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?
• 18th century Franco-Portuguese industrialist Jácome Ratton (pictured) left a vivid account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in his memoirs and was exiled to the Azores during the Napoleonic Wars?
• 18th century French artilleries were the most efficient at cannon operation (pictured), capable of firing 150 shots per cannon daily during siege?
• 18th century French salons were often led by those who were creating the Encyclopédie?
• footballer Edward King was honored for heroism in the Philippines and tactical skill in France and later became Commandant of the Army Command and General Staff College?
• Cambodia's Mongkol Borei District was part of Thailand until the French demanded it back in 1907?
• Camille Le Mercier d'Erm and his colleagues formed the Breton Nationalist Party in 1911 to advocate the independence of Brittany from France?
• Catherine II's Instruction to the Legislative Assembly was banned in pre-revolutionary 18th-century France as a "libertarian book"?
• cinematographer Lawrence Sher first developed an interest in photography after his father convinced him to take a 35mm camera on a Teaneck High School-sponsored trip to France?

Germany

• 19th century Polish general Ludwik Mierosławski led revolutionaries in Poland, Germany and Italy?
• U.S. Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen received the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained an understanding between Hitler and Stalin to split Central Europe, from German diplomat Hans von Herwarth?
• the author of the term Third Reich predicted that "Germany might perish because of the Third Reich dream"?
• Church of Scientology International official Leisa Goodman went on a six-month mission to investigate the treatment of Scientologists in Germany?
• communist activist Franz Jacob organized one of the largest resistance groups in Germany during World War II?
• French Major General René Cogny, who later commanded French forces during the First Indochina War, was captured in June 1940 by the German army, and had to escape by crawling naked through a drainpipe?
• French protests caused the Russians to award the contract for the Gangut-class battleship to a Russian firm rather than the German winner of the 1908 international design contest?
• Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg Franz Hofer arranged the surrender of the troops under his command with an American sergeant, and a Jewish emigrant from Germany, Fred Mayer?
• German painter Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over Byzantine and Western influences in modern Greek art, and painted church frescoes in Greece, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia?
• German bass Hans Herbert Fiedler sang the role of Moses in the original 1954 production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron?

Russia

• 17th century Russian diplomat Pyotr Ivanovich Potemkin (pictured) is reputed to have insisted on lying in bed during an audience with the King of Denmark, who was himself confined to his bed, to demonstrate equality between Russia and Denmark?
• Abkhaz writer Fazil Iskander publishes articles for the Russian newspaper Kultura?
• aluminium alloys developed by Russian metallurgist Igor Gorynin are claimed to have the highest specific strength of all known weldable metallic materials?
• Armenian composer and musician Ara Gevorgyan composed the music for Russian prima ballerina Anastasia Volochkova's "Golden cage" ballet dedicated to the Bolshoi Theater?
• aviation historian Randy Acord was awarded the Alaska–Siberian Lend Lease Award for his role in improving Russian–North American relations during World War II?
• Chechen military commander Said-Magomed Kakiev has been declared a Hero of the Russian Federation four times, making him one of the most decorated Russian citizens?
• Chinese immigration to the Russian Far East has led to fears of Chinese irredentism in Russia, even though there are less than 35,000 Chinese in all of Russia?
• Count Orlov's Marble Palace, decorated with 32 shades of Russian marbles, currently houses the largest exhibition of Pop Art in Saint Petersburg?
• Emperor Paul of Russia ordered the name of his mistress Anna Lopukhina to be given to warships and to be inscribed on the standards of his Leib Guard?
• England brokered the 1617 Treaty of Stolbova between Sweden and Russia?