On November 3, 1929 — just a week after the stock market crash — Ripley made a shameless statement in his first Sunday panel for Randolph Hearst: “America Has No National Anthem.” The sensitive, writhing public went catatonic as Ripley correctly asserted that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was nothing more than an unofficial anthem, with the melody lifted from an old English drinking song. But it took a little more than a year for Congress to pass a one-sentence bill, and on March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed into law “The Star-Spangled Banner” as America’s national anthem — all thanks to Mr. Ripley.
July 26, 2024
Brian Trauman of New Jersey has a massive collection of 5,548 PEZ dispensers!
Robert Ripley began the Believe It or Not! cartoon in 1918. Today, Kieran Castaño is the eighth artist to continue the legacy of illustrating the world's longest-running syndicated cartoon!