Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 276
May 2, 2019
May 1, 2019
The Man Who Survived Two Atomic Bombings
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Naval engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was working in the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. While the war raged in the Pacific, he had managed to keep busy designing ships and oil tankers for the country. Just as he finished a three-month project, and was preparing to head home to see his wife and daughter, he noticed a plane flying overhead. Something fell from the plane. Slowed by a parachute, it was an atomic bomb.
Yamaguchi jumped into a nearby ditch as the bomb exploded in the sky. The aircraft that dropped the device, the Enola Gay, had targeted the city just two miles from where Yamaguchi took cover. The blast sent him spinning through the air, and he landed in a nearby potato patch. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything—the world was completely black.
The blast hadn’t blinded him, but instead blotted out the sun with an enormous cloud of dust. Yamaguchi’s arms and face were badly burned and his eardrums were ruptured. As the debris cleared, he saw a towering mushroom cloud over the city.
Getting Home
The blast had immediately killed some 80,000 people, but after running into some fellow survivors in the Mitsubishi shipyard, Yamaguchi made his way to an air raid shelter. In the morning, he heard that the train station had somehow survived and that people were making a mad dash for it, hoping to escape the city.
Still injured, he made his way through a city of crumbling buildings, fires, and bodies melted to the streets. At one point, he had to swim across a river filled with burned corpses. Yamaguchi eventually made it to the train and settled in for the night as it took him to his hometown of Nagasaki.
Countdown
When Yamaguchi arrived home, his wife and daughter didn’t even recognize the burned man standing in front of them. His wife knew her husband had been in Hiroshima, and thought his bandaged figure might even be a ghost. After finally receiving medical attention, he collapsed in bed for the night.
The next morning, Yamaguchi reported for work like any other day, but his superiors sat him down to debrief him on the events in Hiroshima. He explained what he saw, but his bosses didn’t believe him. They thought there was no way a single bomb could cause so much destruction.
It was during this meeting that the sky once again lit up with fire. The building was destroyed and his bandages were blown away, but—once again—he survived. Worried for his family, Yamaguchi rushed home. Thankfully they were just as lucky.
Aftermath
Though Yamaguchi is the only officially recognized double-survivor of atomic bombings, as many as 165 people experienced both atomic weapons firsthand. Despite becoming sick with radiation poisoning, Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived until 2010, eventually becoming a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament.
April 30, 2019
Harmless Sea Skate Or Spawn Of Satan?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The beliefs of 16th-century scientists were imaginative, to say the least. From early plans for lunar travel to the vegetable lamb of Tartary, some explanations for the natural world around them were interpreted in some pretty funny ways.
It’s hard to tell if Jenny Hanivers were the result of pre-evolution naivety or religious fervor turned hoax, but for a few centuries, Europeans believed they were fishing devils out of the sea. Dried or preserved skates presented as devils, demons, dragons, angels, or even mermaids, are collectively referred to as Jenny Hanivers. The phrase is believed to be the English version of “jeune d’Anvers”—French for “child of Antwerp.” The Belgian port city is believed to be the center of Jenny Haniver sales in the 16th-century.
Of course, we now know that these creatures are not infernal beings or long-sought cryptids, rather a variety of fish known as skates. Closely related to rays, these “devil fish” are harmless bottom feeders.
The example shown here is a clearnose skate. They live at depths of up to 1,000 feet, eating small shellfish, worms, squid, and other small fish. Like some sharks, they lay leathery egg cases—up to 66 in a season. These egg cases often wash ashore after hatching and are colloquially called “mermaid purses.”
To this day, they are still caught accidentally in trawling nets. While we’ve had the luxury of studying these creatures in their natural habitats, Medieval sailors and academics had none of the modern technology we have today to really know all that much about the seafloor. All they knew was that these creatures were strange, scary, and came from the depths of the Earth.
Sailors weren’t all innocent though. There’s clear evidence that people would carve these creatures to look even more satanic, going as far as to add horns or more mermaid-esque features. Much like P. T. Barnum’s Fiji Mermaid, Jenny Hanivers were eventually revealed as the hoax they were: merely dried skates.
The Danger Committee Follows One Principle: Escalating Stupidity
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
What do you get when you combine two world champion combat jugglers and a man described as being possibly the best knife-thrower to ever live? You get The Danger Committee.
Mick Lunzer, a dyslexic juggler who still sometimes has trouble telling his left from his right, got his start with co-star Jason LeMay in a juggling-only group known as the Dew Drop Jugglers. The duo alone has enough juggling trophies to burst any display case, but when comedy writer and knife-thrower Caleb “Reynaldo” McEwen replaced a member of the juggling gang, a name change was in order. Fresh off a kick of improv classes and comedy, they decided to take the “Yes, and…” philosophy to the extreme and form The Danger Committee.
If you’re unfamiliar with the improv term, “Yes, and…” refers to the concept that you don’t say “no” to whatever another improv performer says. Instead, you add to whatever they say—no matter how outlandish. For The Danger Committee, that means they’re always daring each other to do extremely absurd and perilous things. They call their version “Escalating Stupidity.”
If you’re going to juggle, why not do it with stun guns? Surely 500,000 volts are enough? Why settle for low voltage stun guns when the whole point is the danger? The Committee opts for 2-million volt stun guns instead. Likewise, why cut a cucumber in someone’s hand with a knife throw when you can cut a Cheeto instead? The Danger Committee is always looking for some way to add fire, balance, electricity, and danger of any kind to their performance.
The Turbine of Death
According to Lunzer, this addiction to danger is the result of boredom. “We really don’t practice anymore,” he told us, “it just gets boring.” After juggling and knife-throwing for 30 years, the group started feeling the drudgery of juggling pins and throwing daggers at people. These performers use the danger to energize themselves, and it forces them to pay attention. You might see them with a few band-aids and bruises, but their typical injuries now come more often from moving equipment than juggling fire.
While the group is sure to keep their skills sharp, many of the stunts they perform on-stage are their first attempts. Sure, McEwen is confident he can slice a Cheeto out of someone’s hand, and sure, LeMay is confident he can balance on a board and ball while holding a Cheeto perfectly still, but they really don’t know until they do it live on stage.
Despite being daredevils supreme, the gang does say that sometimes the tricks unbelievable to them, aren’t so unbelievable to the audience. McEwen, for instance, can flick a piece of popcorn out of a person’s fingers with a bullwhip, but when people see it, they refuse to believe he actually did it. Lunzer’s reactions are so fast that he can catch a knife thrown at him before it even hits the board. But, again, audiences don’t always believe it. “They think there’s a trick or that we faked it,” Lunzer says, “so sometimes we scale our performance back.”
Putting on a performance limited only by human belief—the very essence of Believe It or Not! performed—The Danger Committee is joining Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Carnival of Curi-Oddities to dazzle audiences with feats of skill and daredevilry in Asbury Park, New Jersey. From far-fetched feats to biological marvels, this collection of awe-inspiring curi-oddities will spark your imagination, ignite your curiosity, and showcase the truly unbelievable but undeniably true.
Source: The Danger Committee Follows One Principle: Escalating Stupidity
April 29, 2019
The Often-Overlooked Women Behind Famous Male Writers
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Many legendary male writers have women to thank for their success. If it weren’t for these ladies’ tireless attention to detail, encouragement, and backbreaking work, these men wouldn’t have penned such iconic works such as War and Peace and Lolita. There are also some famous male writers who “borrowed” from the women in their lives to produce their works.
Women in the 19th and early 20th centuries had fewer freedoms, but those behind the scenes were passionate about the writing process and were partially responsible for some incredible novels, poems, and children’s books that are beloved by people even today.
Zelda Fitzgerald
The characters on The Beautiful and Damned were illustrated to look like Zelda and Francis.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, had a penchant for incorporating actual life events into his work. Some of his characters were inspired by his wife, Zelda, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship. Scott also stole some of Zelda’s writing and published it directly into his work. While reviewing one of her husband’s books, Zelda wrote:
“I recognize a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”
Scott, in turn, accused Zelda of stealing his ideas when she wrote her only published work, 1932’s Save Me The Walz, claiming she used autobiographical details from their lives together that he intended on including in his novel Tender Is The Night.
Olivia Langdon Clemens
When Olivia Langdon married American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a, Mark Twain, in 1870, the pair treated each other as equals. At one point, Twain’s copyrights were transferred to Olivia to prevent creditors from gaining access to the family’s income. Olivia was very involved in her husband’s writing, according to the Mark Twain House & Museum. He would give her his manuscripts to review and would often—but not always—take her suggestions. Their children would sit by their mother as she read Twain’s pieces and mark the pages she thought needed more work. In his autobiography, Twain noted how he would purposely write items he knew Olivia would disapprove of just to see how she would react. Olivia also edited her husband’s books, articles, and lectures and was dubbed a “faithful, judicious, and painstaking editor,” by her husband.
Helen Palmer
Helen Palmer’s name may not sound familiar, but you probably heard of her husband—Theodore Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. Ted spent a large chunk of time following World War II writing children’s books, something he may not have followed through with had it not been for Helen’s intense editorial and emotional support. He went to Oxford University, but Helen, a fellow student, encouraged him to give up education and focus on art instead. Throughout his career, Helen was instrumental in guiding her husband as he produced playful animal illustrations alongside entertaining stories. She took her own life in 1967 after she discovered Ted was having an extramarital affair with a family friend.
Valerie Eliot
CC Effie
Typist Esme Valerie Fletcher became Nobel-prize winning poet T.S. Eliot’s assistant in the 1950s. Despite a near 40-year age difference, the pair hit it off and wed in 1957. After his death in 1965, Valerie became the late author’s editor and annotator. She was responsible for publishing several of her late husband’s works, including The Waste Land: Facsimile and Manuscripts of the Original Drafts and The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume 1, 1898–1922. One of Valerie’s most significant contributions was allowing her husband’s work, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, to be adapted into a musical. You may have heard of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats? Valerie died in 2012 at the age of 86 in London.
Colette
Colette married writer Henri Gauthier-Villars (“Willy”) in 1893. Before long, Willy realized that his wife had a talent for writing. He forced her to write by locking her in a room. Colette used her own life experiences to flush out the character of a young ingénue named Claudine. Willy wound up publishing four novels Colette wrote under his own name: Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, The Indulgent Husband and The Innocent Wife. Colette left her husband in 1906 (divorcing him in 1910) and went on to publish Retreat From Love the following year. She continued to write and produced several more novels over the years, such as Chéri, The Last of Chéri, The Pure and the Impure, and Gigi.
Sophia Tolstaya
Sophia Tolstaya married Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy in 1862. The couple had 13 children, five of whom died in childhood. Sophia copied and edited his massive tome, War and Peace, seven times by hand. She did so by candlelight with a magnifying glass so she could read her husband’s notes after their children went to bed at night. Sophia also kept a diary and wrote the memoir, My Life. At the age of 82, Leo suddenly left the family and sold most of their property so he could wander the countryside. He died 10 days later. Sophia passed away at the age of 75 in 1919.
Anna Grigoryevna
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was in a bit of a pickle when he first met stenographer Anna Grigoryevna in 1865. A gambling addiction put him greatly in debt, and he signed a contract that would mean losing all the rights to his work if he didn’t produce a novel by November the following year. He spent most of the year working on Crime and Punishment instead of the promised novel The Gambler. Before long, it was October and Dostoyevsky realized he needed some serious help. He hired Anna and for the next 25 days he dictated the novel to her as she wrote it in shorthand and then copied it down. During the process, the pair fell in love, and they wed a few months later. Anna was responsible for making Dostoyevsky Russia’s first self-published author. She also curbed his gambling problem and helped him avoid risky contracts.
Vera Nabokov
Russian author Vladimir Nabokov and his wife wed in 1925. Vera gave up her own writing career to act as her husband’s critic, reviewer, typist, and literary agent. At the same time, she supported the family by working as a secretary and translator. When they moved to America in 1940, she even learned to drive so she could take her husband on trips around the country. Vera reportedly saved the Lolita manuscript from being destroyed after a frustrated Vladimir threatened to throw it in a fire. In the biography Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, Vera is described as Vladimir’s: “wife, muse, and ideal reader; his secretary, typist, editor, proof-reader, translator, and bibliographer; his agent, business manager, legal counsel, and chauffer; his research assistant, teaching assistant, and professorial understudy.” The author dedicated all of his works to Vera.
Dorothy, Dora, & Mary Wordsworth
William Wordsworth’s sister, daughter, and wife assisted him throughout his life. Dorothy transcribed her brother’s work, edited his unpublished works, and was his literary executor following his death. William reportedly used some of Dorothy’s descriptions, without attribution, in his successful guide book Lake District. He also borrowed from his sister’s journals and wrote his famous poem Daffodils using a description Dorothy originally penned. William’s daughter Dora also aided in copying drafts of her father’s works and acted as his literary assistant as did his wife Mary.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
Source: The Often-Overlooked Women Behind Famous Male Writers
April 28, 2019
CARTOON 04-28-2019April 27, 2019
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