In 1918 a journalist named Robert Ripley animated a panel of “amazing facts,” most of which were about sports. Hence the name, Champs and Chumps.
By 1932, Ripley’s little comic had grown into something of an American institution with 80 million syndicated readers nationwide and a staff of two men who spent 12 hours a day in the New York Public Library looking for interesting facts for Ripley to bring to the people.
The world was a tough place pre-Google.
By 1932 the feature had acquired the name most of us still know it by: Ripley’s Believe Or Not.