19 December: Ripley's Believe it or Not

On this date in 1918 Robert Ripley began his Believe It or Not column in The New York Globe. 10 things you might not know about Ripley's Believe it or not:

1. When Ripley first conceived the idea, it was a Newspaper cartoon about sporting feats and was called Champs and Chumps. In 1919, the name changed to Believe It Or Not as items that weren't about sport were being included more and more often.
2. Ripley's first cartoon featured people who could walk, run and jump backwards, and records in skipping rope and the three-legged race.
3. While Robert Ripley's job at the New York Globe gave him opportunities to travel a lot, which did inspire some of his strips, most of the featured facts were discovered by a man named Robert Pearlroth who spent 52 years of his working life combing through books in the library. He was chosen because he knew 14 different languages and so could extract facts from magazines and journals that weren't in English. Pearlroth sometimes spent seven days a week in the library and the staff would have to tell him to go home when the library was closing.
4. In 1929, Ripley's fact finding uncovered the fact the the American National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, had never been officially been adopted as such. This led to 5 million Americans signing a petition to Congress to do something about it. In 1931 a law was passed stating that The Star Spangled Banner had been formally made the US national anthem.
5. As well as Mr. Pearlroth toiling away in the library, another source of fascinating facts was the readers, who were invited to send in information about oddities from their home towns. Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts, had his first drawing published in Ripley's strip when he wrote in claiming that his dog could eat pins, tacks, screws, nails and razor blades. That same dog was the model for Snoopy.
6. Robert Ripley himself was an interesting character. Born on Christmas Day 1890, in Santa Rosa, California, he always wanted to be a cartoonist, and submitted cartoons to his school magazine. He became the owner of a number of odd items such as a whale penis, a fish which could only swim backwards, a Chinese junk ship, and a shrunken head from Tibet. He also collected female housemates from around the world, so his household could be described as a multi-national harem. He didn't drive and often worked wearing just his dressing gown and his mother's Wedding ring.
7. He married a film actress called Beatrice Roberts in 1919, but they divorced in 1923.
8. Even his death could have featured in one of his cartoons. He was filming the final (13th) episode of the first Ripley's Believe it or not TV series when he collapsed and died at his desk, apparently of a heart attack.
9. It may have started with a newspaper comic strip but it certainly didn't end there. In 1930, the radio show began and was followed by a TV show, several short films, a web site (ripleys.com), computer games and museums, sometimes referred to as "odditoriums" all over the world. There was even talk of a feature film starring Jim Carrey in the early 2000s, although I could find no evidence it was ever made.
10. While the company which now owns the franchise insist that every fact is rigorously checked before it is included, some have been subsequently debunked, including the story of 1,200 Turkish prisoners being executed by accident in Napoleon's time, and the one about Frank Tower, a man who allegedly survived the wrecks of The Empress of Ireland, the Lusitania and the Titanic.

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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