Who is Robert Ripley?

Robert Ripley
Robert Ripley life was an unbelievable adventure. For over forty years, he explored the uncanny and witnessed the amazing.

He was a world traveler who visited places few people has ever heard of, from the road to Ming tombs in China to a town in Norway called Hell!

He was an artist and a reporter, an explorer and a collector. The stories he gathered would later appear in his popular Believe It or Not! cartoons. Today, the cartoons are still enjoyed by millions of readers around the world.

Wherever he went, he searched for the odd and the unusual. In his quest, Ripley documented the customs and beliefs of many ancient and modern civilizations.

Biography
The Ripley story begins on Christmas day in 1893, when Robert Leroy Ripley was born in Santa Rosa, California.

A talented self-taught  artist, Ripley sold his first drawing to Life magazine when he was only 14! Ripley was also a natural athlete who longed for a career in baseball, but his dreams of pitching in the Big Leagues were shattered when he broke his arm while playing his first professional game.

After the accident, Ripley returned to his earlier goal of becoming a professional artist. He landed a job as a cartoonist covering sports for the San Francisco Chronicle, but soon after, he left California, and headed for New York city.

In 1918, while working as a sports cartoonist for the New York Globe, Ripley created his first collection of odd facts and feats. The cartoons, based on unusual athletic achievements, wer submitted under the title "Champs and Champs". His editor, however, wanted a title that would describe the incredible nature of the sporting feats. After much deliberation, it was changed to Believe It or Not! . The cartoon was an instant success.