Mathematically speaking, everyone in Europe is related to Charlemagne (King of the Franks).

 This is because everyone has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on.

 By the time you get to the 13th century, you have more direct ancestors than have ever been human beings - about 80 billion. Therefore you must have shared ancestors.

 In 1995, a man called Mark Humphries at Dublin University discovered this information. He discovered his was wife was King Edward III's great-granddaughter 20 generations down the line.

 After closer examination, he discovered his wife was also related to Hermann Goring and American explorer Daniel Boone. He then managed to calculate the mathematics of the information !!!

It took 300 years for the giant tortoise to get a scientific or taxonomical name because people kept eating them!

 People would put them on ships and sail them back home, but by the time they arrived at port in Europe the crew would have eaten the whole lot. Even Charles Darwin and the crew aboard the Beagle ate all the giant tortoises on board !!

 The only descriptions of them are comparing them to chicken, beff, mutton and butter, and saying they tasted better than all of them. Even the liver and bone marrow was considered delicious.

 They were also used as ‘water stores’, because they have a special ‘internal bladder’ which stores water so perfectly that it is drinkable, so when you slit them open to cook them, you also got a gallon of fresh water!

The crew therefore, stacked them up so that they could not move, and they did not need to be fed for months so they were very useful for whaling ships because they provided both food and water.

 There are 12 species of giant tortoise, all of which are now endangered (surprise surprise)!

 The actual scientific name for a giant tortoise is Geochelone.