• Many people writing to Ripley included their own drawings in the hopes that he would be inspired to use their ideas for a Ripley's Believe It or Not!®. In 1937, young Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was first published when he sent in a cartoon about his dog Sparky's ability to eat pins, tacks, screws and razor blades. Sparky served as the model for Schulz's world-famous cartoon character, Snoopy.
• The Ripley collection includes 20,000 artifacts, 10,000 photos and more than 130,000 cartoon panels.
• During his broadcasting career, Ripley celebrated many "firsts." He was the first to broadcast on a nationwide network from mid-ocean, the first to broadcast from Buenos Aires to New York and the first to broadcast to every nation in the world simultaneously, assisted by a corps of linguists who translated his message.