Robert Ripley
(Often Hard to Believe)

One aspect of Robert Ripley's Believe It or Not columns that is often passed over in silence is the quality of the art. People find it hard to believe that such expert draftsmanship was the product of a high-school drop out - which is true. Then they are even more amazed when they read - believe it or not - that this high school drop was totally self-taught - which isn't.

In fact, it was his lack of skill that in 1909 got Robert Leroy Ripley - known as "Roy" as a kid and later as "Bob" to his friends - bounced from his first job as an illustrator for the San Francisco Bulletin. We don't mean he was terrible. After all, he had created illustrations for his high school paper and his drawing was good enough to let him wrangle the tryout with the Bulletin. But he was simply not able to compete with the professional artists in what was the Golden Age of Newspaper and Magazine Illustration. Remember this was the day before television or radio, and it was newspapers and magazines that provided cheap and daily entertainment. The readers not only wanted stories but expected pictures - good pictures - to accompany the prose. And although it's sometimes not appreciated, some of the best cartoonists were superb draftsmen who had received academic training. So our high school dropout from Santa Rosa couldn't - and didn't - cut it.

Fortunately Robert was good enough to land another chance at a paper just down the block. This was the long lived San Francisco Chronicle. Robert also immediately began taking art classes several hours a day. Since there is nothing better for innate talent like professional and competent instruction, soon Robert was indeed competing with the professionals.

Robert's bosses quickly noticed that the jug-eared and buck-toothed kid from the sticks was one of the hardest workers on the staff. Although he had his art classes in the morning, he would stay working at his desk until 10 at night. He drew what was expected and his salary went from $10 a week to a munificent $20. He was soon given increasingly important assignments including the job of drawing and reporting on the training camp activities of Jim Jeffries before his big fight with Jack Johnson (Jim, by the way, got pummeled). There Robert met Jack London who at the time was one of the most famous writers in the world. Jack was impressed with Robert's artwork, and he suggested that Robert might find a better job in New York. Finally, in 1912, Robert took off.

When he got to the Big Apple, Robert headed to the Globe and Commercial Advertiser in Greenwich Village. After waiting for over an hour he was finally ushered in to the sports editor, Walter St. Denis. Walter looked at Robert's drawings and called in the paper's editorial cartoonist, Jay Norward "Ding" Darling. Ding, who would eventually win two Pulitzer Prizes, saw that Robert had both talent and skill and suggested a six month trial. Ding even offered to reimburse the paper for Robert's salary if the kid didn't work out.

Naturally since he worked for the sports editor, Robert spent most of his time illustrating sports stories. But his fast and high quality work and sheer enthusiasm prompted the paper's managers to try him out on something bigger, and Robert was assigned to go to Europe to look around and gather material. The ship first landed in Egypt, and Robert was fascinated by what he saw. From there he went to Italy and France, and when he returned to New York, he wrote and illustrated a month's worth of articles, most of which had a sports slant. The series proved popular and Robert was given a two year contract at $60 a week - quite good money at the time.

If you're going to be a sports illustrator, it's a good idea to hang out with famous sports figures. So Robert joined the New York Athletic Club and even lived there in a rented room. To keep in shape he took up boxing, sparing with professionals like Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier, as well spending time on the tennis courts. The club's crowd was not limited to professional or amateur athletes but was literally a Who's Who of celebrities and movie and radio stars together with their hangers on. One of the bunch was a young girl (and we mean a young girl) named Beatrice Roberts. Beatrice later became an actress with almost exclusively uncredited film roles in movies like Naughty Marietta, Jungle Woman, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. One of the rare roles where she actually got billing was as Queen Azura in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars starring Buster Crabbe. But at the time her acting had been limited to appearing in the lineup of the Ziegfeld Follies. Soon after they met, Robert and Beatrice decided to get married.

Robert, though, didn't want to change his lifestyle. So he told Beatrice he was going to keep living in his room at the Athletic Club, and when they wanted to get together they could meet at hotels. Robert also saw no reason to quit seeing other ladies. This did not sit well with Beatrice who had hoped for a more or less normal family life. There were many shouting matches (both private and public). Then when Beatrice tracked Robert down to a hotel room where she found him in his bathrobe and a skimpily attired lady in the bedroom, she decided enough was enough. Believe It or Not, this marriage lasted three years.

Despite the way Robert told it in later years, Believe It or Not was a long time in gestation. Nor is it clear who really came up with the idea. According to Robert, in December, 1918 he needed a column for the day. Not having anything obvious from current events, he penned a panel about various sports champions who did odd things like run backwards across America, jump rope for four hours, and hop 100 yards in 11 seconds. He titled it Believe It or Not and it was a hit.

His boss, Walter, remembered things a bit differently. He said he, Walter, suggested the idea to Robert and gave him a bunch of clips of oddball bits of sports trivial. But the title was - as found in back copies of the paper - "Champs and Chumps". Reception was fair and a few people wrote in that they liked the feature. But it wasn't until the next year - October, 1919 - that the second feature appeared, now retitled as Believe It or Not. Walter also remembered that he, not Robert, dreamed up the catchy title.

Far from being an immediate hit, the column took some time to catch on. The third installment appeared in 1920, and even by the next year Robert was only producing two Believe It or Not columns a month. Eventually, though it did become a daily feature, and by 1929 Robert had enough columns to make up a respectable book.

Robert may have been surprised but he soon had a best seller on his hands. Soon William Randolph Hearst - the publishing magnate - sent a telegram to his New York editors: "HIRE RIPLEY". The offer was $60,000 a year base salary - over $800,000 in today's money - plus a percentage of royalties and fees from syndication and books. Robert could easily expect over $100,000 a year. Then there was always the extra brought in by the new entertainment media.

It's often forgotten that the two decades from 1910 to 1930 - when Robert developed his craft - were years of rapid technological innovations. The resulting changes in lifestyle were every bit as revolutionary as what the world experienced during the computer and Internet revolution of 1980 to 2000. In Robert's day, transportation soon went from horse and train to automobile and airplane. Entertainment had changed from live vaudeville, theater, and concerts to radio and film. Believe It or Not also made the transformation and Robert made hundreds of radio broadcasts, some of which were backed by the band of Ozzie Nelson (yes, the Ozzie Nelson, Ricky's dad).

But the success of Believe It or Not was really from Robert's daily illustrated newspaper column (it wasn't really, as is usually said, a cartoon feature). Technology was a factor here as well. Methods of commercial illustration had advanced to where the readers were treated not only with the interesting tidbits of obscure information, but also with exact reproductions of Robert's excellent drawings which he largely rendered in charcoal and ink.

WARNING!!!!!!

This next section is quite nerdy and is fit mostly for anyone who wants to learn about nineteenth and early twentieth century engraving techniques.

To skip this section, click here.

Printing had come a long way since the Civil War when pictures were still printed from hand carved wood engravings. Instead, by the early 20th century, newspapers and magazines were using photoengraving which allowed exact reproduction of drawings and, with a bit lesser fidelity, photographs.

By Robert's time, photoengraving had been around for nearly a century. It actually predated photography. But in its early years, it was time consuming and difficult and and ill-suited for commercial illustration. Well past the mid-nineteenth century engravings were still rendered by hand, and cheap magazines and newspapers used, as we said, wood prints.

But by the 1890's photography, cameras, and development methods had advanced to where photoengravers would soon become part of the regular staff of newspapers and magazines. Photoengraving was still an exacting craft, though. The engraver started off mixing an egg white with 8 ounces of a 0.5 % solution of ammonium dichromate in water. After filtering out any remaining globs, he would pour the solution onto a polished metal plate (usually zinc or copper), allowing the liquid to run off while leaving a thin even coating behind. After the plate dried it was stored in the dark until needed.

Next the engraver placed a negative - in the early days this was taken from a wet process glass plate - of what he wanted to print on top of the coated plate. Everything was held in place by a special frame and the negative and plate exposed to light. This could either be sunlight or a strong electric lamp. Typical exposure times varied from three to ten minutes depending on what type of image was being reproduced and the strength of the light source.

When exposed to light, the chromium atoms acted as a catalyst to cause the egg-white protein (the albumin) to form a polymer with low water solubility. Or more exactly, the chromium would crosslink the albumin. Naturally this occurred at the transparent parts of the negative where the light got through. The black regions of the negative blocked the light and the albumin didn't crosslink. Gray regions were a bit more troublesome but techniques were available for handling them and to produce half-tone images.

Next the plate was inked with a roller (called a "brayer") and then rubbed lightly with a wet cotton ball. The parts of the egg white what weren't polymerized would rub away leaving the metal exposed. So with the black ink (which was water resistant) remaining on the polymer, you could get a reasonable preview of the image. Next a powdered natural resin from India's Daemonorops palms (called Dragon's Blood due to it's red color) was poured over the plate where it stuck to the ink. The excess resin was brushed away and the plate was then heated. The heat blended the Dragon's Blood into the ink forming a hard resist, that is, a surface that was resistant to the next step, the etching.

At this stage the plate was briefly dipped in a nitric acid solution which dissolved away a small amount of the unprotected metal. The plate was then rinsed, dried and the plate etched about three more times. Between etchings the plate was again dusted and brushed with the resin. The resin at this stage was intended to coat the edges of the etched lines. This prevented the acid from "undercutting" the lines and gave the etched parts a V shape which let the image withstand the pressure of the press. Finally the ink and resin and polymer were rinsed off with turpentine. The metal plate now had raised regions which corresponded to the white areas of the negative and lower areas that had been masked by the dark parts. But since on a negative, white is black and black is white, when the plate was inked and printed, what came out was a reproduction of the original drawing or photograph. When the plate was placed in the press along with the text, you got your illustrated story. Photoengraving - automated and modernized - was the main staple of commercial reproduction up until the 1970's when offset and then digital reproduction came to the fore. However it still used by some printers.

Obviously the engravers themselves had to be highly skilled artists and craftsmen in their own right. Etching of this type could also be quite hazardous with the corrosive and poisonous chemicals it required. So kids, don't try this at home.

END OF NERDY SECTION

It was inevitable that Robert would appear in films, and in 1930 Vitaphone began making a series of Believe It or Not shorts (that is, short films for theatrical release - not Believe It or Not themed underwear). Robert would appear on screen and talk about and exhibit the oddities he had seen and collected.

Admittedly Robert comes off a bit stilted and stiff. Part of this, though, is simply style, and he's not really all that bad compared to the professional actors who appeared with him. Also sound film at that time was new (the Jazz Singer had premiered only three years earlier) and by today's standards sound reproduction was of very low fidelity. So without actors using "stage diction" the dialogue often came out as incomprehensible gibberish - much as when Robert had a male quartet sing the words to the old British drinking song that gave us the tune to the Star Spangled Banner.

Robert himself had no illusions about his acting ability but if the producers thought he was good enough, that was fine with him. One of the more amusing films had him being arrested by a beefy fedora-sporting dick (we mean the 1930's definition, of course) and hauled into court where he was charged with making false statements in his books and newspaper articles. Of course when he was put on the stand, he bested the district attorney by providing proof of his more outrageous claims.

The advantage of the new medium was evident when his guests would ask Robert to draw them a cartoon. Most of the time he would start to draw on camera and then the camera would cut to a side view (where the drawing couldn't be seen). Then we would shift back to the front view and see the finished drawing. So it looked like Robert was producing complex and expert drawings in about 10 seconds. Robert was good, yes, but not that good. Still there is enough showing Robert actually drawing that we see he was indeed a facile and accurate draftsman.

Far from taking offense, Robert loved it when people doubted his stories. Anyone could send him a stamped self-addressed envelope, he said, and he would provide the proof. Of course, what he actually meant was that he would give you the source of his information. Sadly a source and proof are not the same. Some of Robert's sources were fine, others a bit more iffy. But we won't be overly critical since when you get down to it, most of what Robert wrought is indeed correct. Still, with over 30,000 articles since 1919, it's a good thing that Robert gave us the "Not" option.

Part of the problem is like all brokers of information, Robert had to go by what - quote - "experts" - unquote - said. For instance, Martin Johnson who along with his wife Osa became famous safarists and world travelers, stated in one of their African adventure films that giraffes have no vocal cords. This "fact" appeared in Believe It or Not and you will still see it blared out on the Fount of All Knowledge. The truth is all mammals have vocal cords, and this includes giraffes. Taciturn though they may be, giraffes can - believe it or not - snort, bleat, mew, roar, bellow, cough, moan, snore, hiss, and sometimes sound like a flute.

Another major faux pas was that deer bot flies can fly at 818 miles per hour - well above the speed of sound. Although the "proof" - or source - was from a scientific journal, the information has, alas, has been discredited, and we know that bot flies are no speedier than other insects of their genre. This error, though, we can't tote up to Robert since it appeared in the column in 1997.

Another (fairly recent) column mentioned that Florence Nightingale - the famous nineteenth century nurse - invented the pie chart. Alas, this isn't correct either as the pie charts were being used by the political economist William Playfair when Florence was three years old. What is Quite Interesting (note capitalization) is that this very mistake was made in one of it's broadcasts of Qi, the Quite Interesting BBC celebrity panel show hosted by Stephen Fry. In addition to the tidbit (or "titbit" as the British say) about Florence and the piechart, amongst some of the Qi/Believe It or Not overlaps and which appeared in Believe It or Not first are:

• Tastebuds of catfish are distributed over their entire body.
• Jello produces the same electroencephalogram as a living human brain.
• The Parthenon in Athens has no straight lines.
• There are 806 million billion billion billion billion billion billion arrangements of playing cards (actually 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 arrangements).
• A Japanese company has created a robot that can walk downstairs.
• The American Pony Express advertized for "Young, skinny, wiry fellows, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred."
• Big Ben is neither the famous clock in London or the clock tower. It is the bell.
• The Sahara Desert has more precipitation than Antarctica.
• St. Patrick was not Irish.
• Robert Burns did not write the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne.
• George Washington was not the first President of the United States.

Although we realize that the similarities could be that the Qi researchers and Robert used the same sources, the number of coincidental items gives one pause. So we must wonder if when deadlines threaten the BBC's top-notch Oxbridge researchers needs must have them dipping into the writings of an American high school drop out.

Sometimes various legends slip in and like all legends have variable basis in fact. One of the more famous tales - also repeated in other "Stranger than Fiction" books - is how a sailor named James Bartley fell overboard from the whaling ship, the Star of the East, and was swallowed by a whale. The whale was later harpooned (accounts say anywhere from hours to days after he was swallowed). Then when the sailors were carving the whale up, they found James in the stomach. He survived.

Alas, the story is bogus. The wife of the ship's captain had accompanied him on the voyages (captain's wives and even their kids tagging along on board was common enough on civilian ships) and she denied that any man ever fell overboard on the voyages. The whale story, she said, was completely untrue.

One of the more lamentable reports - for which Robert really should have known better - was of the "Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar". This story - shown in animation on one of Robert's films - had a native walking toward a giant plant that enfolded the unfortunate in its leaves a little like the way a Venus Fly Trap snares a fly. This story also makes clear the distinction between a "source" and a "proof". There is indeed a source - a bogus story from 1815 - but there is no proof. There are no carnivorous plants of the size that can consume a human.

Another major error is that Robert reported that Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, was a witness to the assassinations of three presidents: his father, James Garfield, and William McKinley. The truth is Robert was only a witness when James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station in Washington. He was at the White House, not at Ford's Theater, when his father was shot by John Wilkes Booth, and although he had traveled to the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition, he was not a witness when William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz.

Another Believe It or Not item was about the story of the "Providence Spring" at Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp from the American Civil War. Robert said that the prisoners were dying of thirst and had been praying for rain when a storm came up. Lightning struck the camp and opened up a spring of fresh water that saved their lives.

However a union veteran, Joseph W. O'Neall, who had actually been a prisoner at Andersonville, told the story a bit differently. He made no mention of the men praying for rain but did say they had regular revival and religious services praying for "deliverance". But he confirmed that in August 1864 there was a strong rainstorm that washed away huts and even parts of the blockade. He said nothing about lightning hitting the camp, but did say that when the storm was over there was a new source of water arising from the ground. James said the spring was held in veneration by the "superstitious" (James's word) in the region, but he himself refused to take any position on whether the spring was of divine or natural origin. Perhaps the fact that if you're going to have divine deliverance you might do something that would let the prisoners escape rather than leaving them in a hell-hole where - new spring or no spring - thousands of men continued to die. But James didn't deny the spring saved lives.

A more recent "close but no cigar" type error is one where the Believe It or Not feature mentioned that in 1977 Orville de Long was playing golf and got hit by lightning. Then in 1998 he got hit by a meteorite.

Well, we can buy the lightning bit. After all lightning is a danger on golf courses. But meteorites?

The truth is that Orville was not hit by a meteorite. He was almost hit by a meteorite.

Let's get it straight!

But perhaps the most commonly recurring Not error is how the ages of some of the subjects are a wee bit - just a wee bit, mind you - inflated. According to one column, Robert told the story of a man who was convicted at age 17 to rowing a French galley ship and was freed after 100 years and a day. He survived, the story goes, another six years, dying (according to the math) at age 123. Although not completely impossible - the modern upper limit of documented centenarians is 122 - it's not - as Arlo Guthrie would say - very likely and we don't expect it.

But the height of the Not old age columns is when Robert reported that Zaro Agha of Turkey got married when he was 153 years old. Almost of a stretch is that Robert wrote that Janos Roven and his wife Sara of Stradova, Hungary were married for 147 years. And when they died in 1825 (either "almost" on the same day or within a few hours of each other depending on when Robert told the story), Janis was 172 years old and Sara 164. Their son, we read, was 116. And as Arlo said ...

Sometimes Robert would make statements which, while not necessarily incorrect, could be a bit misleading. He stated "Mohammadan's" eat grasshoppers, every true "Moslem" shaves his head leaving only a "handle" of hair, and that "Mohammadan women" who want to give birth to a son make a pilgrimage to a particular tree. These, of course, are not teachings of Islam but instead were local or tribal customs of the African region he was visiting.

Sometimes a particular Believe It or Not will be true (or not) depending upon definition or convention. For instance, Robert mentioned that Admiral Byrd flew around the world by plane in less than 30 minutes. Of course, what he meant was that Admiral Byrd flew to and circled around the North Pole. So if we define "flying around the world" as keeping to a specific line of latitude, then Admiral Byrd was, strictly speaking, flying around the world.

The trouble is you have to fly below a specific latitude for a flight to be officially a true circumnavigation. Or rather what you have to do is 1) cross over all lines of longitude once and 2) fly a minimum distance equal to the Tropic of Capricorn. Keeping a wee bit south of the North Pole doesn't meet that criteria. For what it's worth, Wiley Post's famous flight where he became the first man to fly solo around the world was also at too high of a latitude to count. Wiley flew "only" 15,596 miles - well short of the 22,859 miles needed.

In a similar vein, Robert told how during the American Civil War General Grant was never a general. That is also true or false by definition. He was brevetted a general - that is, promoted to general's rank in the Union Army for the duration of the war. This rank did not apply to the US Regular Army. If you had been a member of the Regular Army, then when the war was over you returned to your lower permanent rank. Temporary promotion during wartime wasn't just a Civil War thing either and continued up to and including World War II. George Patton - who famously sported four stars on his Jeep - was only a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army. And during the war, Dwight Eisenhower - who was Supreme Allied commander - was actually junior in both age and permanent rank to George. George, we read, liked to point this out to Ike.

But we again need to emphasize that most of what Robert wrote was correct. Despite the (rather infrequent) alluding to the occasional legends, for the most part Robert did not play up to ignorance and superstition. Clearly the natural world is wonderful enough, a lesson that is well worth remembering today.

In fact, there were times that Robert was even a bit ahead of the scientists. For centuries there have been reports of fish or frogs falling from the sky and some scientists pooh-poohed such tales as fabrications or legends. But Robert - reporting on fish-falls in his early columns - pointed out they were probably the results of tornadoes passing over lakes, rivers, or the ocean. Nowadays scientists are less skeptical of at least some such reports, and do indeed realize that tornadoes, waterspouts, updrafts, and simply high surface winds are the most likely cause of rising and descending aquatic animals. Still, some of the stranger stories seem a bit too strange to be real - such as the times that hailstones fall from the sky encasing frogs. In some stories once the storm passes and the ice melts, the frogs hop merrily away. But today modern Doppler radar has shown that the tornadic vortices extend from the ground to literally tens of thousands of feet in the storm cloud. So a bunch of frogs could indeed be carried aloft as a bunch, and at that altitude the little beasties could be quickly surrounded by ice before falling back to earth. Since amphibians can indeed be frozen and thawed out still living, this is something we can believe.

The early columns sometimes were more intellectual than what you read today. Although he didn't bore the reader with the lengthy and boring proofs, Robert liked unusual relationships of numbers. For instance, if you take the number 526,315,789,473,684,210 and multiply it by any number from 1 to 10, the original figures will appear in the answer. Amazing? Well, not really. After all, you only have ten digits and you've taking an 18-digit number which contains all the digits and making either an 18- or 19 digit number. That with some effort you can find a number with the properties of 526,315,789,473,684,210 doesn't seem terribly remarkable. After all, the digit in the product does not have to appear in any particular order.

Sometimes the number problems were nothing more than simple algebraic relations in disguise. For instance, Robert suggested the following:

1. Tell a friend to think of a number.
2. Double it.
3. Add 10.
4. Divide by 2.
5. Subtract the original number.
6. Regardless of the original number, the answer will always be 5.

Believe it or not, this is simply another way of saying 5 = 5. That is:

5	=	5	(This is always true).
x + 5 - x	=	5	(Add any number to the left hand side and then subtract it.)
2(x + 5)/2 - x	=	5	(Group the first two terms together and multiply it by 2/2 [which is simply 1]).
(2x + 10)/2 - x	=	5	(Bring the top 2 inside the parentheses.)

The last equation is Robert's problem.

Robert also pointed out that if you want to keep some self-styled math genius out of your hair, just ask them to write out the digits in the number 9⁹⁹ which he said is the largest number that can be written with three digits. Robert said the human lifespan would be insufficient for the task. As a practical task, that's probably true although the actual writing of the 369 million digits would - at writing 2 digits a second - take you "only" about 50 years working eight hours a day, five days a week.

However, you have to realize that different notations can be developed that will let us write still larger numbers with even fewer digits. For instance, using the arrow notation of Donald Knuth, 9↑↑2 equals 9⁹ and so 9↑↑3 is the same as Robert's 9⁹⁹. So we've written the largest number expressible with three digits with two digits!

But now look at 9↑↑9. This an exponential "tower" with nine 9's. So this is a much larger number than 9⁹⁹. Yet it needs only two digits.

On the other hand, sticklers for consistency may object that for the arrow notation you need one additional symbol (or two if you count ↑↑ as two symbols). So you can't compare the two systems. But the arrow notation has an even more compact representation. That's just the reverse of traditional exponential notation. That is ⁿa is used for a↑↑n. So ⁹9 is the same 9↑↑9. This means you only need two digits and no extra symbols to represent a number much larger than the largest number expressible with three digits - or at least expressible in Robert's time.

Of course, after more than a century since Robert began putting pen to paper, science and math sometimes have caught up with him. He wrote that the number pi (π) had been calculated to a whopping 707 places! It's now ten trillion digits, and you can determine any digit without calculating the others (although this isn't necessarily easy). Robert also wrote how the famous four color map problem - that you can color any map using only four colors - had never been proven. That was true until 1989 when the problem was published as the first computer assisted theorem. But it took until 2008 before a non-computer "formal" proof appeared.

Also some of the Believe It or Not items were unusual in Robert's time, but less so today. One of his early features pointed out that one of the richest men in the world paid no taxes. Believe it or not? Shoot, of course, we believe it.

Believe It or Not has been around so long that some items might be - at least to old timers - common knowledge. A few years after the turn of the millennium, a column appeared with an item that read, "Until manufacturing techniques made metal an option, the strings of instruments such as the violin and cello were ... FROM ANIMAL INTESTINES!"

What, the more mature readers may ask querulously, is next? A Believe It or Not column that trumpets the astounding "unknown" fact that "At one time people added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided using ... ONLY PAPER AND PENCIL!"

Well, it could happen.

You can still catch some people with Robert's stories. Just ask them who was the first man to fly the Atlantic. Of course, they'll say it was Charles Lindbergh. And they'll be dead wrong.

It is strange that only three years after Lindbergh made his flight, people had forgotten that a number of other men had flown across the sea and not all that long before. Robert reminded everyone that Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown, two Royal Navy pilots, flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919. Before then there was a trip made with an intermediate stop at the Azores. There were also two dirigible flights - with crews of about thirty men each - that made non-stop crossings before 1920. Based on his information, Robert calculated that Lindbergh was the 67th man to fly the Atlantic.

What made Lindbergh's flight notable was he was the first to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic. He also set the record for longest straight line non-stop airplane flight and made the first flight (alone or with someone else) from New York (actually Long Island) to France.

Another one of Robert's Believe Its that you can pull on your friends is to ask which point on the earth is furthest from the center. They'll probably say the top of Mount Everest. Alas, that's not true. The summit of Everest is the furthest from sea level, yes. But since the diameter of the earth near the equator is about three miles further from the center of the earth than the grand arc at Everest (and 14 miles further than at the North Pole), the point furthest from the center of the earth is the top of Mount Chimborazo. This is in Ecuador and is a bit over one mile further from the center of the earth than the top of Everest. For what it's worth, this was another Believe It or Not item that appeared on BBC's Qi.

Actually this information about Mount Chimborazo leads to another item with which to stump your friends. Tell them the first man to scale the Matterhorn, Edward Whymper, actually climbed further from the center of the earth than Sir Edmund Hillary the first man to scale Everest. Even though, you point out, the top of the Matterhorn is closer to the center of the earth than the summit of Everest. What, you ask smugly, is the resolution of the condundrum?

The answer is that we're not talking about the Matterhorn. Edward scaled a number of other mountains and he was on the team to first scale Chimborazo. So Edward did indeed stand further from the Earth's center than Edmund.

Believe it or not, Believe It or Not is still going strong, and you can read that it remains the longest running cartoon strip, starting as it did in 1918. This, though, is another item that is true or not depending on definition. For one thing "Champs and Chumps" didn't become Believe It or Not until 1919, not 1918. And Believe It or Not did not become a regular feature until 1921. Still, if you want to consider a daily illustrated feature, then we do give the nod to Robert's work.

But there are cartoons that premiered before Believe It or Not and are still running today. One is Katzenjammer Kids (under various names) which first appeared in 1897 although it only appeared as a daily for a short time. Whatever definitions you want to use for journalistic longevity, Believe It or Not does have a most honorable and venerable history. It well predates classics like Judge Parker who first rapped his gavel in 1952, Peanuts which premiered in 1950, and even Blondie which first appeared in 1930.

In 1954, the Guinness Book of World Records premiered and for the first time Believe It or Not had some real competition. However, the two premises are quite different. For one thing, BION (as true aficionados of Believe It or Not call it) is broader in what it reports. Anything of interest is fair game. The Guinness Book on the other hand focuses on records and points out that interesting occurrences or oddities are not of themselves necessarily records. We also have to be honest and say the Guinness Book has a stronger reputation for checking the veracity of its sources. And a Personal CooperToons Opinion is the earlier Guinness Books - which had far more explanatory text than recent issues - were the best.

With his wealth and fame, Robert did not keep living at the New York Athletic Club. He bought a 48 room mansion and lived the high life. He took vacation cruises with caviar and champagne dinners and always had a bevy of beautiful babes in tow. Still he managed to draw his daily cartoon (although sometimes his editors would telegraph reminders they were waiting for the next batch).

It was inevitable, we suppose, but eventually Robert went into, yes, television. He made a pilot show in 1948 and began broadcasting a regular series the following year. All in all he made thirteen episodes and as was common at the time, they were broadcast live and not recorded on film. During the last show on May 24, 1949, he suffered some type of seizure - perhaps a stroke - where he seemed disoriented and dazed. He remained conscious and managed to finish the show although his speech was slurred and muddled. Although later he seemed fine, his friends insisted he go for a complete checkup. He agreed but then three days later, May 27, while dictating to his secretary, he suffered a major heart attack and died.

Of course, Robert couldn't travel around the world, draw and write for his column, party, and gather all the facts alone. He had secretaries to handle his mail, travel, and appointments, all under the direction of his business manager, Robert Hyland. Relieving Robert of some pressure was the fact that the column soon went from just comic panels to illustrated stories. Later, though, the format reverted back to - and today remains - panels without extended prose.

But it was Norbert Pearlroth who kept Robert supplied with a never ending stream of Believe It or Not Believe It or Nots. Robert had been looking for someone to search foreign language magazines for information when he met Norbert - who according to one account spoke and read, believe it or not, 14 languages. At first Robert told Norbert he'd need to work only about an hour a week for which he'd be paid $25. Actually Norbert ended up working seven days a week - mostly at the New York Public Library - finding the whacky odd-ball things for Robert to illustrate. Finally billed as the BION research director, he outlived his boss by quite a bit and continued to research the column until 1975. He died in 1983 a month shy of his 90th birthday.

That we can believe!

 

References

A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley, Neal Thompson, Three Rivers Press, 2013. The definitive biography and very good.

"The Unbelievable Mr. Ripley", Neal Thompson, Vanity Fair Web Exclusive, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/05/robert-ripley-believe-it-or-not?mbid=social_twitter, May 6, 2013. A distillation of Robert's life by the author of the biography.

Ripley's Believe It or Not: Two Volumes in One, Robert Ripley, 1946. This seems to be a compilation of the first two books with most material dating 1931 or earlier, but with some updating for the book.

Ripley's Believe It or Not, Robert Ripley, Warner Archive, Vitaphone, 1930 - 1932. The films Robert made for Vitaphone. Actually pretty amusing and interesting and taken from Robert's early columns.

"Giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis", San Diego Zoo, http://library.sandiegozoo.org/factsheets/giraffe/giraffe.htm. Information about giraffes including the sounds they make.

"The Speed of the Deer Fly", Science, Vol. 87, No. 2254, pp. 233-234, 1938. They don't fly faster than the speed of sound.

Patton: Ordeal & Triumph, Ladislas Farago, Obolensky (Publisher), 1963. Mentions the stuff about temporary and permanent ranks of Generals Patton and Eisenhower.

"Wonderful Stories: The Man Eating Tree", Dr. Omelius Friedlowsky, Current Literature, August 1888, pp. 154-155

Salamanders and Other Wonders: Still More Adventures of a Romantic Naturalist Willy Ley, Viking Press, New York, 1955. Willy, born in Germany but who left for America when the Nazis came to power, was one of the more popular and prolific science writers in the mid-twentieth century. Once Isaac Asimov saw Willy lying back reading a book which was resting on Willy's rather protuberant paunch. "Willy, Willy," Isaac said, poking Willy's stomach. "You really ought to diet." Willy took the cigar out of his mouth and looked down. "All right," he said, "vat color?"

Account of Joseph W. O'Neall, Western Star, February 12, 1912. Joseph's first hand account of the Andersonville spring.

"Did others fly across the Atlantic before Lindbergh?", Straight Dope, March 25, 2003. They did indeed.

"Norbert Pearlroth, 89, Researcher for 52 years for 'Believe It or Not'", Dorothy Gaiter, the New York Times, April 15, 1983. Information about Norbert.

"Formal Proof - The Four-Color Theorem", Georges Gonthier, Notices of the AMS (American Mathematical Society), Vol. 55, No. 11, pp. 1382-1393, 2008. Surprisingly short proof for something that first required a computer.

"The Kitchener Meteorite", What on Earth?, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo (Ontario), http://www.whaton.uwaterloo.ca/waton/f9910.html. The meteorite landed a few feet away from Orville as he was walking to the 6th tee. It passed near his left shoulder. Although he didn't see it fall, he certainly heard it. The analysis of short lived radioisotypes shows that the object was a class L6 chondrite, originating in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Believe It or Not, April 30, 2005.