With Sydney Opera House celebrating its 40th year, there is no better way than to remember its beginnings and milestones but by learning more about it. According to ABC, this popular site in Sydney is recognized as one of the greatest buildings created during the 20th century and it welcomes around 8.2 million visitors annually.

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Here are some of the most interesting fast facts you would be amazed to learn of the Sydney Opera House at 40:

The name of the architect who won the design competition of the Opera House is Jorn Utzon. The Danish architect was the winner over a total of 232 designers and he earned £5,000 as cash prize.

The construction time lasted for 7 years and the actual completion went for a total of 17 years. It was first estimated that its construction cost will be at $7 million but the final cost figures reached up to $102 million.

On October 20, 1973, Queen Elizabeth II was the one who opened it for the general public.

The Sydney Opera House is one of the very first projects that used computerized structural analysis. The team assigned for its design had 12 iterations just for the building's concrete shells. No one knew whether it was another engineer or Utzon himself who proposed the final solution.

The very first artist to have performed in the Sydney Opera House was Paul Robeson who sang to the 10,000 construction workers. He stood at the scaffoldings while singing Old Man River.

As Sydney Opera House turns 40, it will surely remain as one of the most pictured tourist spots around the globe with its beautiful blue water background coming from the Sydney Harbour. It remains as one of the main positive contributors of billions of earnings to the Australian economy.