TIL At the height of the counter-reformation Pope Julius III made Innocenzo Del Monte, his illiterate boyfriend, a cardinal and kept trying to appoint him to advisory roles, ignoring all pushback. Even after his convictions for serious crimes, Del Monte managed to retain his position [Source]

TIL in 2008, Universal Music Group invested in a startup called Uber, a media-sharing platform that fizzled out quickly. UMG was left with the domain name and in 2010, Uber offered UMG 2% equity in the company for the domain. UMG sold its 2% stake back for $863,000 and its worth roughly $3.46B today [Source]

TIL William Shatner starred in the 2010 sitcom "Sh*t My Dad Says" based on a popular Twitter account featuring colorful, often profane comments made by the 73-year-old father of writer Justin Halpern. The show lasted one season. [Source]

Til 1in 5 measles cases will require hospitalization at an average cost of $43,000 per patient [Source]

TIL 99% of commercially produced citric acid is made through fermentation using black mold [Source]

TIL Lee Bryant, the actor that famously delivered the line "Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home!" in Airplane (1980), was cast without any knowledge of her being in the Yuban commercial that actually originated the quote. [Source]

TIL Shadow of the Colossus, one of the most hauntingly lonely video games of all time, was conceived as a multiplayer game [Source]

TIL that 911 Medals of Honor were revoked after the 1917 Medal of Honor Review Board raised the standards necessary for its awarding. Most of those revoked were awarded during the American Civil War simply for reenlisting. [Source]

TIL The United States stores 94% of all electricity in the form of water reservoirs, not in a battery. [Source]

TIL that the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO is considered a national park. At 192.83 acres, it is the smallest national park in the U.S., being less than 2% the size of the next smallest park, Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, AR. [Source]

TIL That Caffeine Has An Average Half Life of 5 Hours [Source]

TIL Mexican general Manuel Mier y Terán warned that Texas was slipping from Mexico’s control, and after watching his country descend into chaos and ignore his warnings, he fell on his sword in 1832 [Source]

TIL that of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States, 229 of them are in Alaska (40%) [Source]

TIL Aldyn-ool Sevek was a master of Mongolian throat singing whose sound was said to be impossible to reproduce; he died of throat cancer in 2011. [Source]

TIL about Cpt. Henry Elrod, a Marine aviator who shot down two Japanese aircraft, sank a warship, landed his disabled plane, and organized a ground defense which repulsed enemy attacks on Wake island where he was mortally wounded. [Source]

TIL before Pope Francis, the last pope to have a unique papal name was Pope Lando (913-914) [Source]

TIL a 14,000 year old puppy buried in Germany survived canine distemper which kills most dogs in under 3 weeks. Archaeologists concluded that its Stone Age owners nursed it through the horrible illness. Then they buried it with them when it died. [Source]

TIL that cockroach milk is one of the most nutritious substances on Earth — 3x richer in calories than buffalo milk — and researchers are already looking into using it in cosmetics and health products. [Source]

TIL the PDF file format was invented by Adobe more than 30 years ago (in 1993) [Source]

TIL of Chevalière d'Éon. Assigned Male at Birth, d'Éon was legally recognized as a Woman at age 50 by King Louis XIV in 1777 [Source]

TIL Friday the 13th (1980) was panned by critics upon release. Gene Siskel was a vocal critic of the film, going so far as to publicly spoil the ending in an attempt to convince audiences not to see it and encourage detractors to write to actress Betsy Palmer and express their contempt for the film. [Source]