The Eurovision Song Contest was inspired by the Italian Sanremo Music Festival, held since 1951, which was used as a basis for the initial planning of the international competition.

The idea for a European song competition was initially proposed by RAI manager Sergio Pugliese and studied by an EBU committee headed by Marcel Bezençon, before the EBU's general assembly agreed to organise it in October 1955 under the initial title 'European Grand Prix'.

The first contest in 1956 was the only edition where each participating country was represented by two songs; the winning song was 'Refrain', performed by Lys Assia for host country Switzerland.

Voting in the very first contest was held entirely behind closed doors, with only the winning song announced on stage; a public scoreboard and announced voting, inspired by the BBC's Festival of British Popular Songs, was introduced in 1957.

The contest was cancelled for the first time in its history in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; in its place, organisers produced a non-competitive special broadcast called 'Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light' to honour the songs and artists that would have competed.

In 2012, the contest was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the Baku Crystal Hall, a venue that had not even existed when Azerbaijan won the previous year's contest, making it the only time purpose-built infrastructure was constructed specifically for the event.

Songwriter Ralph Siegel wrote or co-wrote both Germany's and Luxembourg's entries in 1980, and was involved in dozens of entries over his 40-year career, including 'Ein bißchen Frieden', Germany's winning entry in 1982.

Sandra Kim won for Belgium in 1986 at just 13 years old and remains the contest's youngest-ever winner, a record that will stand since the minimum age rule of 16 was introduced in 1990.

Only two performers have ever won the contest more than once: Johnny Logan, who won for Ireland in 1980 and 1987, and Loreen, who won for Sweden in 2012 and 2023.

No full recording of the 1964 contest is known to exist, and the only surviving footage of the 1956 contest is a Kinescope recording of Lys Assia's reprise of her winning song, though audio recordings of both editions do exist.