(Mental Floss) -- If you think comic book characters do amazing things in comic books, you won't believe what they can do off the page.





For starters, Superman brought down the Ku Klux Klan, and Donald Duck raised ships from the ocean floor.





1. Superman defeats the Ku Klux Klan





In the 1940s, "The Adventures of Superman" was a radio sensation. Kids across the country huddled around their sets as the Man of Steel leapt off the page and over the airwaves. Although Superman had been fighting crime in print since 1938, the weekly audio episodes fleshed out his storyline even further.





It was on the radio that Superman first faced kryptonite, met The Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, and became associated with "truth, justice, and the American way." So, it's no wonder that when a young writer and activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, he looked to a certain superhero for inspiration.





In the post-World War II era, the Klan experienced a huge resurgence. Its membership was skyrocketing, and its political influence was increasing, so Kennedy went undercover to infiltrate the group. By regularly attending meetings, he became privy to the organization's secrets.





But when he took the information to local authorities, they had little interest in using it. The Klan had become so powerful and intimidating that police were hesitant to build a case against them.





Struggling to make use of his findings, Kennedy approached the writers of the Superman radio serial. It was perfect timing. With the war over and the Nazis no longer a threat, the producers were looking for a new villain for Superman to fight. The KKK was a great fit for the role.





In a 16-episode series titled "Clan of the Fiery Cross," the writers pitted the Man of Steel against the men in white hoods. As the storyline progressed, the shows exposed many of the KKK's most guarded secrets.





By revealing everything from code words to rituals, the program completely stripped the Klan of its mystique. Within two weeks of the broadcast, KKK recruitment was down. And by 1948, people were showing up to Klan rallies just to mock them.





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2. Donald Duck's scientific breakthrough





In 1966, Danish engineer Karl Krøyer developed a method for raising sunken ships off the ocean floor by injecting them with polystyrene foam balls. However, when Krøyer tried to license his invention with the Dutch patent office, he was denied. Donald Duck had beaten him to the punch by 22 years.





Indeed, Krøyer's concept could be traced back to a Donald Duck comic conceived by Carl Barks. In addition to being the most celebrated artist of the Donald Duck comics, Barks was known for his scientific prowess.





So in a 1944 story, when Donald got a bump on his head that turned him into a genius, the duck managed to mumble, "If I mix CH2 [a methylene compound] with NH4 [ammonium] and boil the atoms in osmotic fog, I should get speckled nitrogen!"





Although it sounded like nonsense, it wasn't. In 1963, chemists P.P. Gaspar and G.S. Hammond wrote a technical article about methylene that included a reference to the Donald Duck story.





The final paragraph read, "Among experiments which have not, to our knowledge, been carried out as yet is one of a most intriguing nature suggested in the literature of no less than 19 years ago."





A footnote revealed that "literature" as the Donald Duck comic. It seems the web-footed children's hero had deduced the chemical intermediate long before it had been proven to exist.





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But why were these top American chemists looking to comics for inspiration? Apparently, Dr. Gaspar had been a lifelong Donald Duck fan, and he'd rediscovered Donald's early reference to methylene while collecting old copies of the classic adventures.





Gaspar never disclosed how much his work owed to Duckburg's most famous resident, but then again,
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