Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 330
July 19, 2018
Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow Didn’t Start the Great Chicago Fire
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Or Not
In today’s world many misconceptions have been perpetuated—becoming modern day “facts”—when, in reality, myths and hearsay have taken over. Sorry to burst your bubble, but in this weekly column, Ripley’s puts those delusions to the test, turning your world upside down, because you can’t always…Believe It!
Today: Did Mrs. O’Leary’s cow start the Greta Chicago Fire?.
A Cow And An Inferno
The Great Chicago Fire occurred in 1871 and lasted from October 8th to the 10th. The fire caused what is thought to have been over $200 million in damages, destroyed more than three square miles of the city, and killed around 300 people. While the event itself was frightening, the rumors of how it started are strange—even comical—and most people will swear that an Irish woman named O’Leary and her cow were to blame.
According to the well-known story, the cow tipped over a lantern while Mrs. O’Leary was milking it in the barn, starting a blaze that could not be tamed. There’s even a song about it.
“Late one night, when we were all in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed.
Her cow kicked it over,
Then winked her eye and said,
‘There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!’”
Though the fire did start in or near the O’Leary barn, the story about the cow was completely fabricated.
The Cow Was Not to Blame…
Part of the reason this rumor has endured for so many years is that it adds a bit of levity to the situation. The idea of a silly accident being the cause of the fire put an amusing face on a serious event that claimed lives and terrorized the city. People can laugh at the cause even though the destruction was immense.
Still, the story is untrue. Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Ahern, the newspaper man who originally published the cow-related tale shortly after the fire, retracted his statements in 1893 and said he had made it all up. Other reporters even claimed to have been in on the conspiracy or to have written the article for him. Though he hadn’t named the O’Learys in his original article, the damage was done by this point.
…And Neither Was Mrs. O’Leary
While the cow is the enduring part of the story today, much of the reason people readily believed the tale at the time was because of the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish sentiments in the city. Mrs. O’Leary became a scapegoat for those who wanted to blame people unlike themselves for all of their problems. Reporters were also unkind to her, describing her home as squalid and depicting her as a drunkard or an old hag.
For years, Mrs. O’Leary claimed she had been asleep when the blaze started and that she hadn’t been milking her cow, but few believed her. She lived with the pain allotted to her as a result of this false rumor until her death in 1894. In 1997, the city council of Chicago exonerated her and her cow, even though neither was officially charged with any crime—and even though it made little difference to either at that point.
Then, Who Did Start the Fire?
There are plenty of other tales about who or what actually started the Great Chicago Fire, some of which include a thief who was trying to steal milk from the O’Leary cows, while others involve a raucous craps game that had been taking place the barn. Naturally, all of these rumors have about as much hard evidence in their favor as the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, although the latter continues to endure.
By Julia Tilford, contributor for Ripleys.com
Source: Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow Didn’t Start the Great Chicago Fire
July 18, 2018
Anthrax Island: The Secret Uninhabitable Biological Weapons Test Site
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Just half a mile off the coast of Scotland, in the Northwest reaches of the United Kingdom, lies an island that was once so contaminated with bioweapons that no one was allowed to step foot on it for fear of unleashing a miasma of anthrax upon the world.
Gruinard Island, as it is officially known, measures just 1.2 miles long. Once covered with trees, it was described as the perfect hideout for thieves and rebels in the 16th century. As many as six people were recorded living on the island, but since modern records starting in the 1920s, no one has lived there.
CC Kevin Walsh
It was in 1942, while the Battle of Britain raged, that military forces traveled to Guinard in hopes of creating a germ bomb to release on the Germans. Designated Operation Vegetarian, they hoped to disseminate deadly anthrax bacteria into the Nazi’s beef supply, crippling their enemies.
The strain they chose—Vollum 14578—becomes more virulent the more hosts are exposed, leading to a snowball effect of infection. Just like other forms of anthrax, it was communicable by eating the flesh of infected animals as well as being deadly to the animals themselves. This approach made the effort two-pronged. It would infect German citizens and also kill cattle, depriving their soldiers of food.
While gastrointestinal anthrax infection is the least common, its effects are just as deadly. Instead of causing boils and abscesses on the skin and throat, this type of infection results in bleeding throughout the digestive system. Even with treatment, mortality rates as high as 60% are projected.
Meteorologist Sir Oliver Graham Sutton traveled to the island with a team of 50 men and 80 sheep to complete to develop and test the plan. Though Operation Vegetarian parameters called for the dissemination of anthrax into the beef supply through linseed cakes, the scientists simply released a cloud of anthrax upon the tethered sheep. Within days the animals had all died. Though they carefully decontaminated their equipment and incinerated the sheep’s’ corpses, the team quickly realized their plan was too deadly.
Once the anthrax was unleashed, there was little they could do to stop it. Cities that suffered such a biological weapons attack would be rendered uninhabitable for decades. Though they managed to spare mainland Europe from such a disaster, it was too late for Guinard Island. The small land mass had to be quarantined.
Access to the island became strictly prohibited, and it was even removed from some map for fear that terrorist organizations would travel to the island to procure samples of the deadly bacteria.
The island remained off-limits and mostly forgotten until mysterious packages containing infected soil from the island showed up at government offices. The packages were labeled “Operation Dark Harvest” and demanded the government do something to clean up the island.
Via Imperial War Museum
In 1986, over 300 tons of formaldehyde were dumped on the island to try and kill the anthrax spores, and a flock of sheep was placed on the island to monitor for infection. After four years, the island was declared safe, and the quarantine lifted. The family who had been forced to give the land up to the government in the 1940s was also allowed to repurchase it for £500.
Despite its return to “safe” status, many remain fearful of Anthrax Island, fearing the biological weapons could have mutated, or remain hidden in microscopic slumber.
Source: Anthrax Island: The Secret Uninhabitable Biological Weapons Test Site
July 17, 2018
The Once Warlock-Owned Wiccan Implements Of The Ripley Collection
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
It may come as a surprise to many, but the occult religion of Wicca started in 1953. It may copy the practices of millennia-old Druidic rituals or the primordial ceremonies of witches, but it was a self-proclaimed British Warlock who got the whole thing started.
Gerald Gardner spent most of his early adulthood in South Asia, sopping up the local cultural practices in ceremonies. When he returned home, the amateur ethnographer fashioned himself as a warlock. He became involved with notable occult figures—including Aleister Crowley—before organizing his own coven of witches in a stone tower he owned.
A growing expert on all things relating to witches and witchcraft, Gardner was always trying to organize the spiritually inclined. Though he found a hard time getting other groups to join him, he was a team player at times. When Britain was under siege during World War II, for example, he participated in the formation of a mystical “cone of power.”
Supposedly, he and a vast number of witches gathered to project their power on the mind of Adolf Hitler, to confuse and weaken the leader of Germany. Later they claimed their actions helped undermine the Nazis and ultimately defeat the S.S.
In the period of peace and reconstruction following the War, Gardner had his dreams of an organized witchcraft religion realized. He introduced Wicca to the world. This wasn’t a religion based on devil worship or ostensible frivolity, but instead borrowed much of its teachings from ancient pagans in Europe.
When Gardner died, much of the contents of his tower devoted to witchcraft ended up in the Ripley’s collection. Ceremonial daggers, hand-written spell books, treatises on the mystic arts, and various Wiccan paraphernalia have filtered into our various Odditoriums.
The bell shown here was believed to be used in the evocation of protective Goddesses or to exorcise evil spirits. The books contain hand-written notes on a variety of rituals in conference with other mystics in Europe at the time.
Source: The Once Warlock-Owned Wiccan Implements Of The Ripley Collection
July 16, 2018
STILL THE ONE: Meet The Biggest Celebrity In Monowi, Nebraska
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
As you round a bend on the dusty highway leading into town, you see the small, green sign standing proud against the Great Plains sky.
“Monowi,” it reads. And a single number one is printed beneath it.
You follow the road into town, if you can call it a town, because if you blink you will surely miss it. On one side is a storage barn, where nothing looks to be alive or stirring—and may not have been for quite a while. On the other side is the cluster of what appears to be a library, a run-down house and a bare, shotgun cottage.
If it weren’t for the sign on the outside of the cottage, you’d never know she was there.
Still, the sign calls out like a beacon: “Monowi Tavern.”
The front door creaks as you enter, spilling light all over the dark, wooden décor. And there she sits, chatting with a customer who’s just finished eating.
She says hello, and you introduce yourself. You’re not entirely sure what to say. She is, after all, the biggest celebrity in Monowi.
She is the bartender. She is the Mayor. She is the librarian and record-keeper.
She is Elsie Eiler, the only person who lives in the whole town.
You think back to the sign on the road. Monowi, Nebraska.
Population one.
‘THIS IS HER TOWN’
“She’s in charge of everything,” says Frank Hanzlik, a bear-sized man who just finished lunch in the tavern, just as he does most days, although he lives in a neighboring city seven miles down the road. “This is her town.”
Elsie Eiler is 84 years old and has been running the Monowi Tavern for nearly 50 of those years. According to the census in 2010, she is the only person who lives in town, making Monowi the only incorporated place in America with a population of one.
“I just pay attention to my business,” she says, taking the hamburger patties and throwing them on the grill. “People from around here, they come in and they eat and drink at the bar, and I get them what they want.”
Open six days a week (she’s closed on Mondays) the Tavern is the place to be if you’re from the nearby cities. The residents come in for burgers and suds because the food is reasonably priced and darned good, too.
But it’s the other thing that’s gained her the most popularity, the fact that she’s the only person in Monowi. Up until 2004, there was another, but her husband, Rudy, passed away that year and left it all to her.
Some days are busier than others, and sometimes, her daughter and son will come in to help. She’s been featured in newspapers and on television shows across the country, which has resulted in a steady increase of visitors. And things really picked up when she was visited by comedian Larry the Cable Guy, who in 2010 profiled her and the town for his television show, “Only in America,” for the History Channel.
She’s had customers from 48 states (she’s only missing folks from Idaho and West Virginia) and 41 different countries (Pakistan recently invited her to come to the country so they can honor her. She has not taken them up on it).
“Some days we’re busy, some we’re real slow, but that’s the way it goes,” she says. “After 47 years I don’t worry about a slow day.”
‘ALWAYS BUSY’
Up until 2004, Elsie ran the town with her husband, Rudy, and the sign noted a population of two. But when he died, it left her by herself. So she started a 5,000-volume library in his honor, and the town had another attraction.
Measuring just a fifth of a square mile, you can take in all of Monowi just by turning around in a circle. But the Tavern is where the party’s at—it’s where she is, after all. Elsie grew up and went to school in nearby Lynch, and although she likes to travel to visit her daughter in Arizona, she says her heart belongs here.
“The summers are always busy,” she says. “People come in and stay for the day. In the winters, people come by at night and they chat at the bar.”
Still, the question remains: What will happen to the town, and the Tavern, once Elsie is gone?
“My son, who lives nearby, has shown some interest about keeping it going, but I don’t think it’s possible, really,” she says. “I’ve had so many things grandfathered in for me, it would not be very beneficial for someone else.”
Like how she can grant herself a liquor license, which she pays—to herself. Or how she develops her own road plan every year to get state funding for their traffic lights.
At the end of most days, she’s cooked so much that she can’t even come to make anything for herself. “I like peanut butter sandwiches,” she says. “No jelly. Then again, sometimes I do like a burger. Sometimes that just sounds good.”
Online you can read the reviews on sites like Yelp and Google. Most recommend the burgers. But all will agree on one thing: The management rates five stars. Because Elsie comes out to sit with her clientele, to talk with them. And they love her for it.
But she doesn’t feel like a celebrity.
“When I meet a celebrity, I’ll tell you what it’s like,” she says, laughing. “I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’ll just keep cooking up hamburgers and serving beers.”
By Ryan Clarke, contributor for Ripleys.com
Source: STILL THE ONE: Meet The Biggest Celebrity In Monowi, Nebraska
July 15, 2018
July 14, 2018
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