Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for April 08, 2017

James Asquith: a modern-day Phileas Fogg (expect not in 80 days).

NY to Paris? I guess the hard part was that wet drive across the Atlantic Ocean!

Who won that race: Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon?

And what road did they use to cross the Atlantic???

So, next 25 years he’ll be writing a book on that..?

Wow! They went west! NY to San Francisco, then to Valdez, Alaska by ship. Siberia, Manchuria, and across Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1908_New_York_to_Paris_Race

I saw the winning car, a 1907 Thomas Flyer, in the Bill Harrah car collection in Reno. It was still decked out in race trim. http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z15120/Thomas-Flyer-Model-35.aspx

“Boom”? …And I thought it was simply the power of her kiss…

Early cars had foot warmers that burned coal. Since they were not enclosed, exposure to carbon monoxide was less of a concern than it would be if we tried that in a modern, enclosed car. Still, the smoke might make things unpleasant.

And no mention of how few gas stations we had in (19)08…

There were gasoline, coal and battery powered vehicles at that time. There were charging stations set up too.

The “big bang” actually began with a giant mistletoe berry. Sadly, this finding just pushes the problem back to how the great mistletoe was grown.

Some of those visits by Asquith would not escape the notice of MI6.

“Mmmwa — YOW!”

Man, I’m hard-pressed to NAME all those countries. (FWIW, I’ve been to 21 if you count airports.)