The youngest Pope in history was Pope Benedict IX, who was either 11 or 20 years old when he was elected in 1032. He is also the only person to have been the Pope more than once.
100 Mind-Blowing Either Facts
The Poodle is one of the cleanest breeds of dogs, making them a great choice for people with pet allergies. They don’t moult much at all, and they rarely smell, either.
The Earth is the only planet in our solar system not named after either a Greek or Roman God.
Peanuts aren’t technically nuts. They’re legumes. According to Merriam-Webster, a nut is only a nut if it’s “a hard-shelled dry fruit or seed with a separable rind or shell and interior kernel.” That means walnuts, almonds, cashews, and pistachios aren’t nuts either. They’re seeds.
The Eiffel Tower was originally intended for Barcelona. The Spanish city thought the design was too ugly, so Gustave Eiffel pitched it to Paris instead, as a temporary landmark during its 1889 International Exposition. French critics didn’t like it much either though.
The Eiffel Tower was originally intended for Barcelona. The Spanish city thought it was too ugly, so Gustave Eiffel pitched it to Paris instead. French critics weren’t too thrilled either, but it’s one of the most famous landmarks in the world today.
Cold water is just as cleansing as hot water. Modern detergents allow clothes to be cleaned equally with either warm or cold water. The only difference between the two is that warm water requires more energy.
The boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 takes a week to beat. The player can either defeat them by not playing for one week or simply by changing the date on the console. Battle the boss as you would normally until it is almost beaten after that quit the game and change the date one or two weeks later.
Bi-weekly has two connotations. It can either be every two weeks or twice a week. The prefix bi- may be used to imply both or either meanings depending on context.
Flies hum in the key of F. The buzzing sound they make is caused by their wings when they fly. The sound will either be a low or high buzz depending on the species.
Chinese acupuncture states that there is a point in the head that can control one’s appetite. This point is located in the hollow that is just in front of the flap of the ear. Pressing this point can either increase or decrease one’s appetite.
Dogs and cats also have a dominant side like humans do. A research study from Washington, D.C. states that these animals can be left or right-handed. They favour either the left or right paw when they move.
Women buy 96% of the candles produced. According to a survey, 4% of men who buy candles are either buying it as a gift or for a female they are related to.
90% of U.S. money has cocaine on it. Either from exposure or drug use, a study revealed that 90% of the dollars circulating in the economy have cocaine on it. Traces of cocaine were found to reach 0.006 micrograms (several thousand times smaller than salt). The green dye on dollars causes cocaine residue to stick to the bills.
Reality TV phone calls are almost always fake. Phone calls are a familiar reality TV template, but there’s not much reality to them, either. It’s relatively easy since the fake conversation can be shot for each speaker and then edited together.
An actor’s brain activity is different when in character. Some actors are so good, you forget that they’re acting. However, the actors themselves seem to forget that too. During a study, researchers scanned performers’ brains while the actors answered questions either as themselves or in character. According to the results, the brain activity of participants differed between answering as themselves or as a character – almost as if the character is possessing the actor.
Platypuses don’t have stomachs. So, platypuses have a duck-like bill, are mammals that lay eggs, and now they don’t have stomachs, either? Truly a WTF animal for WTF facts.
An ostrich’s brain size is smaller than its eyeball. Talk about a bird’s brain. The average size of an ostrich’s brain is 59.26 x 42.30 mm, meaning the ostrich’s brain is smaller than either of its eyes which are the size of billiard balls.
The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be in Barcelona. When Gustave Eiffel’s design was rejected by the Spanish city for being too ugly, he pitched it to France. The locals weren’t in love with it either, but tourists from around the world flock to Paris to see it!
Sloths usually mate and give birth while hanging in trees. Mothers will birth their babies either on the ground or upside down in a hanging position. After it is born the infant grabs onto the mother’s fur and makes its way to her chest to nurse.
They are diurnal, meaning they are awake either day or night. Two-toed sloths are nocturnal.
Earth isn’t round. While this sounds like an elaborate joke, we’re serious. Earth isn’t flat, but it’s not perfectly round either. Earth’s rotation causes the planet to bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles, while the distribution of mass on Earth (which is not perfectly uniform) causes small variations in the gravitational pull at different locations on the planet. These variations are too small to be seen in pictures of Earth from space, so they appear round to the human eye. The shape seen in the video above is not technically the shape of the planet, but its ‘geoid’, the shape of its mean sea-level surface extending around the entire globe. The map was produced using data collected from ESA’s Gravity and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) and shows the most detailed map ever created of Earth’s gravity field.
Bill and Melinda Gates have given away more than $45 billion since 1994. Bill Gates alone has ranked among the world’s richest for decades now, amassing much of his vast fortune from Microsoft, which he co-founded. Bill and Melinda Gates founded the “Giving Pledge” in 2010 to encourage other wealthy people like themselves to donate much of their wealth either during their lifetimes or afterwards. Despite giving so much away, Bill Gates is still worth over $110 billion.
The inventor of the USB originally designed it to be plugged in either way up. One of the most frustrating things to do with technology has got to be the fact that, try as hard as you will; whenever you go to plug a USB in, it’s the wrong way up. The original design would have been much better but ended up being canned as it would have cost twice the price to make it flippable. The inventor of the USB has since agreed that they made the mistake of not going ahead with the original idea.
These Billion-Dollar IT Companies Started In A Garage. The tech industry is unique compared to other industries. Some of the largest names in tech originated in founders’ garages. In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked from their garage space to launch Microsoft. Google began as a side project of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a garage they rented in 1998. Other companies like Apple, Amazon, and countless others began in garages as well. Perhaps there’s something about garages that spark creativity or productivity. Either way, the tech industry’s giants often come from humble beginnings. Now they’re worth billions of dollars each and counting.
Alexa is always listening to your conversations. This probably isn’t new to you. Siri has been doing it forever. Alexa stores your dialogue history in its cloud to help improve your Alexa experience. But you can review and delete these recordings, either in bulk or individually.
Yahoo’s original name was a mouthful. The original URL for Yahoo was akebono.standford.edu. The name Yahoo was selected because it was derived from Gulliver’s Travels slang, “Yahoo,” which was a fictional race of beings in the book. Bonus Fact: Amazon wasn’t always Amazon, either! Originally named “Cadabra.com,” Cadabra was an online bookstore only. CEO Jeff Bezos explored other options in the ’90s, some of which still redirect to Amazon, like Relentless.com. Amazon was registered in 1994 and has grown into the monolith that it is today.
Stalin’s eldest son died in a German concentration camp. Stalin’s son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, was raised by an aunt and didn’t meet his father until he was 14. During the war, Yakov fought as a Russian soldier and was captured by the Nazis. After he was revealed to be Stalin’s son, the Nazis attempted to use Yakov as leverage, but Stalin refused to negotiate, stating: ‘You have in your hands not only my son Yakov but millions of my sons. Either you free them all or my son will share their fate.’ Yakov died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp while attempting to climb the camp’s electric fence.
43 per cent of all breaches are insider threats, either intentional or unintentional. (Check Point)