In The Wizard of Oz the Ruby Slippers are what brought Dorothy home to Kansas from Oz, and after their fame on film, the slippers were away from home longer than Dorothy ever was!

Thirteen years ago, the ruby slippers, famously worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, were stolen out of a museum devoted to her, the Judy Garland Museum. The museum is located in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, the actress’s home town. The slippers were stolen in the middle of the night on August 28th. They had been out on display for people to see in the museum, the slippers were not owned by the museum, so the famous shoes were loaned to the museum by a collector. The shoes are worth around two million dollars, so losing them was a big deal. With no video cameras or fingerprints, finding the thief was made almost impossible. To steal the slippers, the thief had to break open an emergency exit and break the case that held the slippers. One of the only clues left behind by the sneaky thief was a single red sequin.

The shoes were stolen in 2005, and the matter was swept under a rug when no chance for recovery seemed possible. However, 13 years later in 2018 the investigation was brought to light again. The initial action that started the recovery of the shoes was a private donor offering one million dollars as reward money to whoever found the lost pair of shoes, even though in the end no reward money was given out. After reward money was announced, many people started searching for the beloved shoes, but none helped the investigators get any closer to finding the ruby slippers. After this announcement, someone approached an insurance company, claiming to know the shoes’ whereabouts and how they could be returned. Investigators from the F.B.I. along with other agents from Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami, organized a sting operation to recover the slippers. A sting operation is a strategy the government uses to help catch people commiting crimes, and they start by identifying potential suspects. Next, the government makes contact with the suspect; this could be through social media or in person. When the suspect is confronted, usually by a government official acting as a regular citizen, an offer to buy the stolen goods from the thief is made. When government officials come to hand over the money, the thief will bring the stolen item at a preselected specific location where the criminal is finally arrested. The government has not named thief

The ruby slippers were found safe and sound, which is good because they are very rooted in American culture. A fun fact about the slippers is that no one actually knows how many pairs of ruby slippers were made for the movie. Right now there are four known pairs in existence, but many pairs were destroyed early on. One of the four pairs of slippers were sold to Lady GaGa for her 25th birthday. The ruby slippers were actually meant to be silver as the original book authored by L. Frank Baum indicates, but this was changed because the movie directors thought red sequins would pop out better on screen. Additionally, it is really hard to clean the ruby slippers because the sequins were made out of gelatin, which is a substance that does not work well with most cleaners. Lastly, each sequin needs to  be individually cleaned with a cotton swab dipped in ice cold water.

The ruby slippers are deeply rooted in American history as they are from one of the most widely known movies and are one of the most famous pairs of shoes in history. They are worth learning about and going to visit, so maybe check out the pair that resides in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.