Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 310
October 28, 2018
October 27, 2018
October 26, 2018
Mysterious Rectangular Iceberg Found In The Antarctic
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[October 21-27, 2018] Building a church without a permit, the Vatican’s own Pokémon Go, an against-the-odds lotto win, and an unusual ice cube.
Burger Begging Dog
People apparently couldn’t resist the puppy-dog eyes of this burger-loving pup. After noticing some strange behavior from her dog, Princess, Oklahoma City resident Betsy Reyes decided to follow her canine companion one night. She found the pooch begging for burgers at a nearby McDonalds. She asks that people stop fattening up her dog because she isn’t—despite what Princess wants them to believe—a stray.
135-Year-Old Church Didn’t Have A Building Permit
The Sagrada Familia basilica began construction in Barcelona, Spain, in 1882. Still under construction 136 years later, it just came to the city’s attention that the church never got a building permit. After much debate and over a century of law changes, the church finally decided to settle by paying $40 million.
His Lucky Break
It’s often said that you’re more likely to get into an accident on your way to buy a lottery ticket than you are to win the actual lottery, but one man managed to do both. Earl Livingston of New Jersey was on his way to buy a Mega Millions ticket when he fell and broke his hip. He decided to join the hospital staff’s lottery pool which ended up with a ticket worth one million dollars!
The Vatican’s Own Pokémon Go
Hoping the popularity of Pokémon might get more people interested in Jesus Christ, the Vatican has just launched an imitator (or competitor?) app in the fashion of Pokémon Go called Follow JC Go. Instead of catching Pokémon, gamers can collect saints and other Biblical figures with their smartphones. The app allows people to form an “evangelization team” and will monitor vitals like nutrition, hydration, and prayer count.
Unusual Ice Sheet
While conducting routine surveys of the Antarctic, a peculiar ice formation was spotted. A giant unnatural-looking rectangular iceberg was found floating in the ice shelf. Scientists note it’s very rare to find an ice sheet with such perfect corners and that it had likely broken off the ice shelf recently.
Source: Mysterious Rectangular Iceberg Found In The Antarctic
October 25, 2018
Princess Leia’s Hair Was Inspired By Real Mexican Rebels
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Star Wars heroine Princess Leia was fearless in battle, dedicated to taking down the Empire, and one of the Rebel Alliance’s greatest leaders. All of these strong traits, down to the two buns coiled on the sides of her head, can be attributed to Mexico’s female revolutionaries known as the soldaderas.
Star Wars creator George Lucas looked to Mexico’s female warriors, or soldaderas, for inspiration when crafting the character Leia Organa for his iconic space opera. Don’t let their highly styled hair fool you. These women, who joined the revolution around the start of the 20th century, were tough and considered an important part of Mexico’s rebel force!
Clara de la Rocha was a colonel in the Mexican Revolution, fighting against the longstanding dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz from 1910 to 1920. It is thought that this photo of de la Rocha in particular, now archived for eventual display at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, inspired Leia’s famous coiled buns. Here, she is seen standing next to her father, General Herculano de la Rocha. Clara de la Rocha is known for a key 1911 battle in Sinaloa, northern Mexico, where she crossed a river on horseback and took out a power station in order to allow rebel forces to attack at night without being seen!
Carrie Fischer famously disliked the double-bun hairdo, reluctantly trying the style on for George Lucas. The wardrobe department had all sorts of hairstyles layed out for screen testing, but Lucas decided the coiled buns were perfect. This decision meant Fischer had to spend two hours each morning of shooting in a stylist’s chair getting her hair ready.
Some historians note that the soldaderas were not the only ones to sport Leia’s buns. The women of the Native American Hopi tribe may have also been an inspiration. Regardless of what culture Leia’s hair originated from, it was inspired by strong women like Leia, and the woman who embodied her, Carrie Fisher.
From conga-dancing dogs and bicycling ballerinas, to hair-raising feats of strength and death-defying motorcycle stunts, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! A Century of Strange! is sure to delight readers of all ages. With over 1,200 weird-but-true stories from around the world and 256 pages of wild and wonderful photography, this year’s collection of all things odd is not-to-be-missed.
QUIZ: Which A Century of Strange Personality Are You?
Are you a rebel? Find out which friendly (or freaky!) face from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! A Century of Strange you are! Take this quiz to find out!
Don’t miss out on being an ODDthority on everything strange, get your copy on Amazon today!
Source: Princess Leia’s Hair Was Inspired By Real Mexican Rebels
5 Animal “Facts” Snapple Got Wrong
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Snapple, the tea and juice brand, is still using its “Real Facts” campaign, but these truths are not always entirely accurate, especially when it comes to our animal friends. After reading our breakdown of five animal “facts” Snapple got wrong, you might be less likely to believe what you read on the bottom of drink cap.
1: “Slugs Have Four Noses.”
This Snapple “fact” is a bit misleading; rather than four noses, what slugs actually have is two sets of tentacles. Their top set can detect changes in brightness and sense other stimuli, and their bottom set can smell chemicals. While we humans like to assign animal appendages similar roles to what our own can do, these tentacles actually work almost nothing like the way we know our noses to do. (Try saying that three times fast!)
2: “The Bullfrog Is the Only Animal that Never Sleeps.”
While there is a continuing belief that bullfrogs are the only animal that never sleeps, there are two problems with this assertion. One is that the concept itself is based largely on a single study from the late 1960s where bullfrogs were found to respond to painful stimuli (a shock) the same way every time they experienced it, even when they were in a resting phase. However, one study is not nearly enough on which to base as bold a statement as this.
Furthermore, other animals have been found to chuck the necessity for the sleep as well, or at least, to not sleep the way humans do. Dolphins, for example, can rest one half of their brains while the other half stays awake!
3: “Giraffes Don’t Have Vocal Chords.”
This “fact” was simply an assumption based on two observations:
Giraffes have long necks.
Giraffes don’t make a lot of noise.
In truth, however, giraffes do have voice boxes, and while it was long believed that they could not make sounds intense enough to be able to vibrate what would need to be incredibly long vocal chords, they actually can. Lions may roar, but giraffes hum, a strange, quiet, snoring sound you can hear here.
4: “A Hummingbird Weighs Less than a Penny.”
This one’s just misleading. The bee hummingbird actually does weigh less than a United States penny, coming in at about 2.4 grams and 2.5 grams, respectively. Still, the bee hummingbird is indigenous to Cuba, not the United States, so you’re not likely to see many of them around. The average U.S. hummingbird weighs around 4 grams, which is definitely heavier than a penny.
5: “Elephants Are the Only Mammals that Can’t Jump.”
It is true that elephants cannot jump if we are basing the ability to jump on having all of one’s feet off the ground after propelling oneself upward. However, they are not the only mammals in the non-jumping club. Rhinos can’t jump, and neither can sloths or hippos.
By Julia Tilford, contributor for Ripleys.com
October 24, 2018
The Real Scientist That Inspired Frankenstein
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
When asked what inspired her to write her tale of gothic horror, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley often says she wrote her book in a frantic, waking dream. What gets oft forgotten is that she and her friends had spent the night talking about Galvanic Reanimation.
Galvanic Reanimation was discovered by Luigi Galvani in the late 1700s. At this time in history, mankind had just begun discovering how to harness electricity. Galvani, seeking to unlock the secrets of biology as well made an accidental discovery when his electrified scalpel caused a frog he was dissecting to twitch. This put Galvani down a long road of discovering how muscles worked and what electricity could do to animate them.
Galvanism
While Galvani’s discovery is credited with pioneering bioelectricity, his nephew would take Galvanic Reanimation to a whole new level. Entering the world of scientific academia when he was a teenager, Giovanni Aldini learned much from his uncle. Where Galvani stopped with frogs, however, Aldini experimented on much more advanced animals and even humans.
As Aldini learned that he could stimulate different muscles with electric probes, his mastery of biology grew. Eventually, his demonstrations were turned to the public, and he would lug giant batteries from town to town to demonstrate the effects of electricity. Audiences would look on in awe and horror as he cut the heads off of dogs and oxen, then proceeded to make them spasm and twitch with electricity.
His most famous experiment occurred in London, 1803. A man named George Foster had murdered his wife and child. After making a confession, he was sentenced to execution and dissection. Shortly after being hung, his body was carted in for a demonstration by Aldini. The scientist took to the project with ease demonstrating his ability to manipulate the body.
On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.—From the Newgate Calendar, 1803
Newspapers reported that people witnessing the demonstration feared Foster would be returned to life and pondered what that would mean for his death sentence. All across the world, people considered the ramifications of reanimation, but Aldini wasn’t troubled by any of this speculation. Aldini knew he wasn’t bringing anybody back to life. He often reiterated that his goal was not to meddle with the dead but to actually find ways to manipulate the living.
Aldini would go on to work on electrotherapy. In addition to his works in medicine, Aldini served as an engineer, responsible for the design of many lighthouses. Eventually, the Emperor of Austria made him a Knight of the Iron Crown, before Aldini passed away in 1834. Aldini’s legacy, however, remains best remembered in Shelley’s novel.
By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.—The Creature Awakens, Chapter 5, Frankenstein
October 23, 2018
Victorian Self-Care: Dr. Macaura’s “Blood Circulator”
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Dr. Gerald Macaura patented a device he dubbed a “blood circulator” in 1869. The device utilized a hand-crank to pulsate, creating a vibration to be used for massage. Devices like these were rarely advertised for their explicit purpose. Just as modern consumers prefer discrete packaging for these sorts of things, a Victorian woman could maintain a plausible deniability for her “massage tool” or “blood circulator” in more modest company.
Women all across the western world were affected by the Victorian Era’s avoidance of sexuality in the social sphere. Massagers like Dr. Macaura’s were made in response to doctors becoming the go to source for what was dubbed “hysteria.”
Hysteria became a catch-all term in the public lexicon. Coming from the Greek word for uterus—hysterika—it reasoned that any number of health or mental problems suffered by women came from the womb. Some “academics” even went so far to say this was a reaction to not having children.
Good Vibrations
Massagers were originally made to be used by doctors, but as the need for treatments became more widespread and chronic, do-it-yourself solutions became widespread. The Sears catalog offered an assortment of personal devices for massage. Some were electrified, others hand operated. Dr. Macaura’s device was eventually marketed as the Pulsocon, claiming to vibrate up to 5,000 times per minute depending on how vigorously one cranked the handle. In addition, it could be fitted with a number of extra attachments, like polished knobs of wood or rubber suction cups.
While much of this activity was going on with polite winks and nods, many who saw through the device’s intended purpose sought to disrupt the practice of self-care.
Since hysteria had been used as such a catch-all term for female distress, Macaura’s Pulsocon was advertised to treat an impossible number of conditions as well. Macaura was eventually busted on false advertising, spending a year in jail. Believe it or not, his customers didn’t seem to care, and he made $75,000 in sales just while he was imprisoned.
Source: Victorian Self-Care: Dr. Macaura’s “Blood Circulator”
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