The World of Ripley's Believe it or Not!

It's shocking but irresistible. The fantastic and amazing World of Ripley's Believe It or Not uncovers and relates curiosities from around the globe. Its full-color, oversized format and round trim make it a suitably remarkable package to display the bizarre findings of Robert Ripley, who traveled to 198 countries to research his famous newspaper cartoon strip.

Starting with his first drawing in 1918 and the first Ripley museum in the 1930s, this book is filled with examples of human oddities, exotic artifacts, strange happenings, unusual inventions, marvels of nature, extraordinary achievements and coincidences. Readers will be amazed by the truly macabre world that Ripley captured. Hundreds of photographs show the real people and things that inspired the famous drawings. Exotic objects and human feats stretch the limits of the mind, body and imagination.

Here readers will meet world champion chicken picker Buck Fulford who could catch, kill, cook and eat a chicken in less than two minutes; Alice Penfold who could lift her sister Mary on a stool using only her teeth; "Three Ball Charlie" who could put a tennis ball, golf ball and billiards ball in his mouth and still whistle; and Liu Ch'ung of China who has double pupils in each eye.

I make a living out of the fact that truth is stranger than fiction.--Robert L. Ripley For more than 80 years, Ripley's Believe It or Not! has been the world's foremost source of the extraordinary and the bizarre--"curioddities" so amazing they defy belief. The World of Ripley's Believe It or Not! features Ripley's world famous cartoon strips as well as dramatic photographs from the Ripley's archives that document his spine-tingling findings. They depict real events that stretch the limits of the imagination--so incredibly eccentric that they possess an irresistible charm. It's a fantastic trip through the fanciful, marvelous and macabre world that has dazzled Ripley's fans for decades. Yet every fact and every feat in this unique book is true. Traveling to over 200 countries in his relentless pursuit of the truly unbelievable, Robert Ripley established a tradition of discovery that the editors of Ripley Entertainment continue today. His insatiable curiosity led him to the lifesaving bullet Police Officer Tapscott caught in the chamber of his own gun during a shootout in 1935, and to meet the man who repaired his own broken rib with an icepick, screwdriver and two one-inch screws. The incredible feats Ripley sought out, often a thrilling combination of daring and imagination, will beguile and delight as they test the limits of the human body: "Three Ball Charlie" of Humbolt, Nebraska who could put a tennis ball, billiards ball and golf ball in his mouth and still whistle; Angelo Corsaro of Catania, Italy who walked a total of 558 miles to the Vatican on ten-foot stilts and mighty-jawed Jackie Del Rio of Chicago who could lift two tables and six chairs using only his teeth. Ripley also discovered hundreds of animals that defy Mother Nature: a benchpressing frog, a living headless hen, a fish that can climb trees, a rollerskating penguin and a two-headed calf. We meet individuals from all walks of life--"normal" people upon whom fate has bestowed some truly abnormal traits, like the Colombiere family in France whose male heirs are all born with two left hands, or Iccolo Miccolo, piccolo player for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Tracing Ripley's incredible legacy from the first cartoon he cobbled together in 1918 to the Golden Age radio show, the much-loved television program and the museums around the globe still visited by millions yearly, The World of Ripley's Believe it or Not! is a chronicle of the shocking, intriguing and unique. You will find that while the world is full of strange things, human beings are the strangest of all. Believe it or not!