January 11, 2018 • 29 mins
Odds are you've heard about the Guinness Book of World Records, the famous, often inaccurate compilation of various impressive, important, and ridiculous feats from people across the planet. But how did it come about? How on earth did a brewer become the repository of all this strange knowledge? Tune in for a surprising peek behind the keg -- and into the cups -- of Guinness history and human ambition.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben.
We're here with our super producer, Casey Pegram. I don't
know if he has a world record yet. And I'm
Nol the average man, Brown. Is that a world record?
Are you the most average? No, I'm quite average at
being average, but I hope to one day go out
for a world record in averageness. It turns out, Noll,
(00:46):
that there are so many world records. We always hear
about these things, where so and so has the largest
collection of matchsticks, which you know, going back on our
earlier common luminous from a previous episode, I could see
that being a world record. Well, it's also like, you know,
obviously we think of world records. We think of things
(01:08):
like being the fastest runner, or things that are measured
very specifically and precisely in sports in the Olympics, you know,
competitive sports like but then there's the fun dumb ones
like the match sticks or you know, the world's largest
postage stamp. I don't know if that's real, or like,
you know, the world's tallest man, which is a distinction
(01:30):
worthy of being you know, put in a a in
a document or a book. Shall we say, and we
know and love that book, and it's called the Guinness
Book of Records, and it's been around for a long time.
As it turns out, yes, it's been around for quite
a while. But the question is, if you're like a
lot of kids in the United States, the question is
where does this book come from? For most people, it
(01:54):
was a book. I don't know about you, but growing up,
there was a thing in my neck of the woods
called like the Scholastic Book Fair. Yeah, and one of
the hot items in the book fair was going to
be Guinness Book of World Records, followed only by scary
stories to tell the dark. Yeah, nailed it. Wow. Do
we go to the same school. I think everyone went
to that school. I think they toured around with that.
(02:15):
There were those cases. It looked like a rock show.
They were like these kind of like rolling cases and
they'd open them up and they'd be full of these
Scholastic paperbacks and you could also do a book order.
I remember that. But yeah, the Guinness Book was always
a hot ticket because it adds later editions, crazy like
holographic kind of covers, and it was very glossy and
a really cool eye popping book. You know, and it
(02:37):
was full of all kinds of gross stuff and weird stuff.
Kids love that stuff, but it turns out so do
drunk Irish people. Yes, speaking of fantastic segways, my friend,
the question for today's episode is where did this book
come from? Doesn't have anything to do with the Guinness Brewery,
(02:59):
because you know, it's completely possible that there's just some
guy named Rutherford Pte McGuinness who decided to calculate every
world record. Luckily, it turns out that is not the case. Yeah,
sort of like the case with the Michelin Stars for restaurants.
People ask the same question, like, is this Michelin like
the Michelin man the tire company. Well it turns out yeah,
(03:21):
they had a stake in the game is best publishing
a travel guide? And then you end up with this thing,
the Michelin Star system for restaurants, such as the case
with Guinness. So, as it turns out, the genesis of
the Guinness Book of Records can be traced back to
a conversation that took place during a hunting party in
County Wexford, which is in Ireland, not too far from Dublin.
(03:44):
That's right, Sir Hugh Erie Campbell Beaver. Will his name
rich Sir Hugh Ere or Eerie e y r E.
Campbell Beaver. Let's refer to him henceforth as Sir Hugh.
I'm gonna go with Sir Beaver, but you could do
(04:05):
sir Hugh if that's why, let's go with so okay,
So regardless of the nomenclature, we choose. Sir Hugh Beaver
was a British engineer and he was the managing director
of the Guinness Brewery at the time. He was hunting
birds with his friends in n Beaver shot at a
(04:27):
game bird and missed the shot winn awry, and this
led the party to wonder not only about how fast
this particular bird was, but it also led them to
ask what is the fastest bird in existence? And they
did not find any reference to this information across the
European continent. They were dumbfounded. Yeah, you would think that
(04:50):
that would be something that would be in like encyclopedia
or record books of some kind that to me is
a more run of the mill type record or at
least just something of scientific note that would be out there.
But no, they couldn't find it. So they figured, hey,
this could be cool as as a promotion for for
the brewery, you know, because he got guys in pubs
(05:11):
that are having drinks and trying to settle arguments. Why
not have a book you could whip out and say, Actually,
it's sort of the invention of Actually, I like the
way you phrase it. There, the lack of information haunted
Sir Hugh Beaver. Picture this otherwise content irishman laying in
(05:31):
bed at night, staring at the ceiling, tortured by this
idea that no one knows which bird in the world
is the fastest, which game bird is the fastest. I
don't want to live in that world. I don't know
what he was saying to himself. Yeah, I don't want
him to live in that world either, you know. And
there was no single official record, or, as he later realized,
(05:54):
there weren't many official records at all. So he did
something about it, right, I mean, he he didn't allow
himself to be tortured by these waking nightmares of not
being able to know what the fastest game foul was, No, sir.
He sought out a pair of twins by the names
of Norris and Ross Mick Hirter, and they were journalists.
(06:16):
More specifically, they were fact checkers. They were um intensely
uh pedantic fact checkers. They were known for their fastidiousness
when it came to verifying data and facts of any kind.
And they had worked um on Fleet Street, which was
I believe kind of a hub of publishing in London,
(06:39):
and they were involved in a lot of encyclopedias and
they would travel the world over to confirm various facts
because at the time obviously no Internet. You had to
go to the place, see the thing, confirm it, test it,
clock it, whatever you have, what have you? And then
they did that what is the world's largest bag of haggis?
Well this is the even four Like this is like
(07:01):
even just with their kind of more um encyclopedic ventures.
But they ended up being perfect for this promotion, right, yeah,
it was great casting and this was so our our friend,
right Mr excuse me, Sir Hugh Beaver is haunted for
about three years by this experience. So it's nineteen fifty
(07:22):
four when he gets this idea for promotion. Uh. The
McWherter twins are perfect casting. There's there's no other way
to say it. And together these folks team up in
a Triumvirate and Guinness Superlatives is incorporated. In November of
(07:42):
that year, they opened two rooms and they converted Gymnasium
on the top floor of Ludgate House at one oh
seven Fleet Street. And it took a lot of work
to make this book. Uh they you. You can look
on the official His Street page for Guinness World Records
and they refer to an initial research phase, but they
(08:07):
don't count it. And we can only imagine how much
research would be involved, because this is the first time
that someone tried to compile all the world records. Who
is the what's the fastest animal, what's the fastest game bird,
what's the tallest point on Earth right? Or the highest
elevation from sea level. I found a really interesting stat
(08:29):
about this. It comes from the current marketing director for
Guinness by the name of Stuart Claxton. He wrote a
cool article that I found on HuffPo and he says
that it took the twins sixteen weeks to put this
thing together and it costs thirty five thousand dollars And
luckily I've got my handy dandy inflation calculator here thirty
(08:52):
five grand. In nineteen fifty four, is equal to about
three hundred and twenty one thousand dollars today. Yeah, and
I found out an even more specific stat about how
long it took them thirteen and a half ninety hour
weeks including weekendsting weekends and bank holidays. So I mean
no small feet and you know the week orders putting
(09:13):
in all this backbreaking work for what at the time
just felt like a promotional item for a pint of ale.
Lagger Is it lagger? Is it Ale? I don't know
if I drink again stout it's stout. I hear that
it's very different when you're actually in Ireland. I'm sure
it isn't any any any folks from Ireland feel free
(09:36):
to to flame our inbox at ridiculous at how stuff
works dot Com for our ignorance about lagger versus Ale
versus stout. Invite us to grab a pint with you
in Ireland. I hear that it is different depending upon
the pub you visit. And I'm always curious what what
temperature is it supposed to be served at? We digress? Yeah,
(09:59):
we all of us. Any was that like little did
the mcquarters know that this, you know, seeming promotional item
for an alcoholic beverage. Shall he say, UH was gonna
blow up to be this massive cultural touchstone that has
gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies over
the years, and like you said, as a as a
(10:19):
staple and in book fairs the world over. Uh. In
nineteen fifty five, summer of nineteen fifty five, they publish
the book. There are fifty thousand copies, and as as
we have mentioned, they were mainly promotional items. But very
soon Sir Hugh Beaver realized that he had accidentally stumbled
(10:41):
into the zeitgeist. People the world over. They wanted to
know who the world's tallest man was, who the world's
shortest person, or the fastest person, or the fattest person,
or the person with the longest fingernails, was most average
person or or the most average person who I believe
still is John B. Smith. Yes, they were like ten
(11:02):
of him and they're all tied for average. Yeah. But
that's the thing. Like it was, the zeitgeis you think
in and of itself because it hit on a an
interest that many many people clearly shared. But it also
created this kind of outpouring of like obsession with record
keeping and record holding right, you had to kind of
(11:22):
invent new records. Where it became. It went from like
things like you're talking about the fastest or the tallest
or the biggest or whatever. It turned into things like
world record for most ballet dancers standing on point on
a pier uh and that was in Thessaloniki, Greece, on
October one, uh and it was for thirty seconds, three times.
(11:44):
So the further you get down the line, the more
specific they get. But what were some of the early
ones that were in that first edition, ben Oh? Sure.
The the earlier ones were things that still seem iconic
to us today, such as the world's tallest man who
ever lived, meaning both living or dead, That would be
Robert persh and Wadlow, who was eight ft eleven inches tall,
(12:07):
although nowadays, if we're talking about living people, the title
would go to Turkish national Sultan Cosen, who holds the
record at eight feet three inches currently. However, the interesting
thing about the evolution of the Guinness Book of World
Records is that of the thousands of applications that the
Guinness World Records Organization receives each month, most are for
(12:31):
new records in categories that did not exist in the
original publication in ninety five, things like the longest kiss.
The current record, by the way, is fifty eight hours,
thirty five minutes and fifty eight seconds. You have to
just twist your head. I don't know. I'm gonna show
you a pretty cool picture that look how bored this
lady looks. You're doing some head twisting and there would
(12:53):
have to be something otherwise there'll just be longest period
with lips pressed together. What qualifies a kiss? That's tough.
I think it's just the you know, fifty eight hours
is a long time to do any degree. The thing
that's neat too, though, is to this day the book
contains about the same number of records as it did
(13:14):
when it first came out in fifty five, and then
the next year in the USA in fifty six, which
is about four thousand and the original edition, there weren't
any color, glossy images like you see today. It was
all black and white photos, and there were a lot
of hand drawn illustrations of the more encyclopedic entries, like
things like the blue whale or any you know, animals,
(13:38):
largest mammal exactly. But some of the things that were
in that first edition that are still quite iconic today
are a man named John our Cobb held the world
record for land speed in a single direction at four
and three point one three five miles per hour. And
that was um a man by the name of Manningford
faith Jan graceful. These names, Lord Manningford faith Jan graceful.
(14:05):
I'm sorry. That's a cow, a British Friscian cow, Frescian
cow that have the highest lifetime milk yield at three
thirty pounds over seventeen years. But good gravy man. The
name your cow? That Manningford faith Jan graceful. Oh my heavens,
that sounds like a Toast of London name. Big time,
(14:28):
big time. I hear your climb vandango and then you've
got you. You guys never heard Toast of London. Check
out Toast of London. It's it's fantastic. Um it's on
Netflix right now, actually plug. But then you've got this
last one, which I really enjoy. There's a pub. There
was a pub called the Smith's Arms that held the
record for being the world's tiniest pub and it was
(14:48):
ten feet wide and four ft high four ft high.
That's what it says. That's interesting. There's also there's also
a record for the largest prenatal yoga class. That's the thing.
If you want to break that record, all you need,
as of our recordings day, is five hundred and fifty
four participants, So you gotta get five and fifty four
(15:10):
pregnant people to do yoga with you, and boom, you're
in the book. We have seen um, all three of us,
Noel Casey and I have seen some pretty specific and
strange records. There's one for spinning a basketball on a
toothbrush while holding it in your mouth. If you can
do it for more than twenty two point four one seconds. Congratulations.
(15:34):
That sounds like a Harlem Globetrotters kind of trick. It does,
it really does. There's there are records for the fastest
planting of rice seedlings. There are superlatives of plenty, you know.
We we've seen things like the person with the most
piercings or the most tattoos. Nowadays, the Guinness World Record
(15:57):
brand is owned by the Jim Pattison Group. They're the
same company that owns Ripley's. Believe it or not, did
you ever go to those museums? I've been to a few. Yeah,
they're kind of schlocky boardwalk tourist traps sort of. Uh,
they're fine. They're fine. Sounds like I'm poopling. I'm not.
I love them. I'm I'm fully into it. I do
no museum of death, I'll give you that. That's true.
(16:19):
They are a little bit you know, they have their
their morbid side, that's try, but they're way more lighthearted. Right.
We do have some good news as well about the
fate of the mc wertard twins, who were really the
driving force for this. I think is it a good
news bad news situation, because there's definitely some bad news.
(16:39):
It is a bad news good news. So from nineteen
seventy two on the mcwherder twins were familiar figures in
a show called record Breakers. Yeah. That actually stemmed from
a children's show called Blue Peter that I think he's
still running you this day, some permutation of it. But
record Breakers was much more specifically tied to the whole
(17:01):
Guinness thing, and it showcased the brothers um steadfastness at
clocking records and measuring success and failures in all these departments,
and they became kind of presenters television presenters in addition
to being behind the scenes folks. And they must have
had some phenomenal cognitive ability because part of the show
(17:24):
involved putting the Mick Werder's on the spot to have
an instant recall of obscure facts and figures, and they
were almost never wrong and almost never at a loss
for the numbers they were asked to recall. Another thing, Now,
I bet most of you boys watching have got hair
twice as long as your father's have four times as
long as your grandfather's. But do you know who grew
(17:46):
the longest hair in the world. Well, it was a
man called Swanna Pendra s and I his hair was
twenty six ft long. Low, I wouldn't like to wear
this the day after we've watched it. Oh, did you
know if you don't believe that, the longest bed on
record was that of Hans land Seth of Norway, and
his beard was seventeen and a half feet in length,
(18:09):
and he died in nineteen twenty seven and it had
to walk backwards all that. The longest king of niles
on record are there as of a Chinese priest who
top twenty seven years to grow them to a height
of or length of twenty two and three quarter inches,
very handy for scratching your ankles. So what happened next?
(18:29):
Here's where we find the darker turn that we we
mentioned briefly. Ross mc whorter was shot fatally by the
i r A on his London doorstep in nineteen seventy five.
That's right. He was a big, outspoken opponent of the
ira A and he used his celebrity to speak out
(18:53):
against them and pushed for a tougher response against the
these kind of republican terrorists by the British government. And
he actually offered a fifty thousand pound reward in nineteen
seventy five. That is a lot of cash for any
information that might um lead to the arrest of any
(19:14):
i ra A cell that was trying to carry out
these just deadly bombing campaigns all throughout London that were
happening at the time. And Norris mcwerder soldiered on as
the book's editor until nineteen eighties six. Afterwards, he continued
as an assistant editor, and he spent a lot of
(19:37):
time involved in political organizations, particularly what was known as
the Freedom Association. He wanted to reign back what he
saw as the over arching or overwhelming power of governments
and trade unions. He retired finally in nineteen six, and
he was seventy eight when he died playing a game
(19:58):
of tennis in two two thousand and four. And what's
interesting is that these brothers essentially created the foundation for
this publication that we still know today that hasn't changed
a ton. I mean, the whole idea is very much
the same as it was when they published the first edition, which,
by the way, you can find on eBay for only
(20:20):
about fifty pounds you can get a first edition Guinness
Record Book. Really, I was really shocked. I would have
thought that they would be more scarce, but I guess
maybe not a first edition. But it's definitely like among
those first several editions, because the first edition, I think
they only made ten thousand copies and then they just
kept having to go into reprints of that first edition.
(20:40):
But in that first edition, the brothers are not directly credited.
They are just called the compilers, the compilers, so there
was a bit of anonymity there. It's it's it's fascinating
you said that, And no, I think we would be
remiss if we did not address a question that everyone
listening is wondering, which is, how do we set our
(21:03):
own world records? Is it possible in this day and age.
Is it possible for a well meaning uh John Smith
in the crowd, John or Jane Smith to grab a
superlative all their own? The answer is yes, but it's complicated. Yeah.
(21:26):
And one of the reasons it's complicated is because, like
it's been around for so long, and the records have
to get more and more obscure and bizarre, and the
the the the conditions, right, like the whole ballerina standing
on tiptoe and jumping every thirty seconds or whatever. Like
you can set these bizarre guidelines, that's sure, that's a
(21:47):
record because no one else thought of those exact conditions
to do it. But as far as like breaking like
you know, a speed record or something like that, that's
a little more tough. But you know, you it's within
your grasp if you want to come with something weird
that no one thought of. But right it is not
by any means impossible. It really depends upon a couple
(22:08):
of things. The first thing that you will do if
you want to set a world record that goes into
print in the book is to find something that is measurable, provable,
has a single point to it, and can be beaten.
Unless it's the first ever version of something like the
first person to walk on an asteroid, right, or the
(22:31):
first person to eat the state of Texas. That's not
gonna happen. What if I just did the first person
to hold a pencil in my closed eyelid by the
eraser for twelve minutes and no one has thought of
that particular thing to do yet, could I could I
technically qualify if if no one has done that one. Yeah,
there's a little bit of subjectivity here because the editors
(22:54):
or the compilers must think it's interesting. And I think
that's specific enough that they would they would consider it interesting,
especially if you did it for like twelve hours or something.
I want to do it with twelve hours. I want
to do it for a maximum ten minutes. Well, you
could get it. You could get it for ten minutes.
But if you said it at ten minutes, what's going
(23:16):
to happen? I guarantee you is. Next year there's gonna
be some JABRONI who goes for eleven minutes. It's not
gonna be me. It's probably not gonna be Casey. I
don't care. I just want to be in the book.
You just want to be So. Another thing people do
is to set group records the world's largest thriller dance,
for instance. Right we talked about prenatal yoga. Just if
(23:39):
you want to set a world record, get a bunch
of your friends or a bunch of strangers to do
one very specific thing with you for as long as possible.
Which the the organization on that boggles the mind. You know,
I guess I would try to. I don't know if
I would beat the largest thriller dance. That was a
(23:59):
record in Mexico with more than thirteen thousand people. Uh.
It was on Michael Jackson's post humus birthday. They all
did the thriller dance. So, as as you can see,
research is very important. And I'll anticipate the question that
a lot of us have. Is there a person who
(24:20):
holds the record for holding the most world records? The
answer is yes. His name is Ashrita Furman. One of
his records is for pushing an orange for a mile
with his nose, and uh he famously researched the type
of orange to use. So you need to pick your
battles carefully, and you need to be aware that you
(24:42):
can break a record without spending a dime. Uh. The
record breaking is free and open to everyone. They only
ask that you give them six to eight weeks for
existing categories and eight to twelve weeks for new ideas.
So this pencil in the by the eraser that would
that would qualify for a new idea. And every record
(25:05):
has a set of guidelines you have to follow. You
can apply online at Guinness World Records dot com h
and they'll send these guidelines to you via email. There
is uh, there's there's a great piece of inspiration here
by a record breaker named Hannah Bosley. She, along with
three d and twenty four other people, holds the world
(25:29):
record for the largest gathering of people dressed as penguins.
And according to Hannah Boseley, breaking record is not as
hard to organize as you might first anticipate. So just
get going and if you want to do it, you will.
And a streeta Furman who you mentioned, is holding the
record for the most records at two hundred. I believe
you said. Um. It also goes to show you don't
(25:50):
have to be some sort of superhuman or athlete. Uh.
This this person is a health food store manager from
queens Um and the first record that he broke was
in nineteen seventy nine where he did twenty seven thousand
jumping Jack's uh. And then he also holds the record
for rope skipping on a pogo stick. He did that
(26:10):
at Cambodia's Angor Watt. Also he hula hooped at Australia's
Air of Rock and he traveled the entire length of
Paul Revere's ride in forward rolls. So in forward rolls
like hum somersaults. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. So you
know it's up for grabs if if you believe it,
(26:32):
go for it. And I think a good way to
wrap this up is to read the forward of that
original Guinness Book of Records, which was by a man
who at the time was the chairman of the Guinness
Park Royal Brewery. And speaking of amazing titles, his name
was the Right Honorable Earl of Iva and he has
(26:53):
kg c B and CMG UM titles after that, and
their various military orders that he was a part of.
And he prefaces that first edition with this forward. Wherever
people congregate to talk, they will argue, and sometimes the
joy lies in the arguing and would be lost if
there was any definite answer. But more often the argument
(27:15):
takes place on a dispute of fact, and it can
be very exasperating if there is no immediate means of
settling the argument. Who was the first to swim the channel?
Where is England's deepest well or Scotland's highest tree or
Ireland's oldest church? How many died in history's worst rail crash?
Who gained the biggest majority in parliament? What is the
highest point in our country? And so on? How much
(27:38):
heat these innocent questions can raise. Guinness in producing this
book hopes that it may assist in resolving many such disputes.
And may we hope turn heat into light. Fantastic and
well said. We only want to add when you are
considering breaking a world record or forming a new one. Uh,
(27:58):
Guinness will not accept in anything that harms animals or
is dangerous for the would be record breaker. So you
can't do the longest time without sleep. Apparently you can't
do heaviest fish because people were over feeding their fish monsters. Hey,
if you are working at breaking a record, or you
(28:20):
have a fun idea for a record that maybe has
yet to be dreamt up. Please shoot us an email
it ridiculous at how stuff works. You can also send
us a note on Facebook or Ridiculous History. We've got
an Instagram in ridiculous History, and leave us a review
on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. We would
be much in your debt. Yeah, maybe we can set
the We we can set the record for the most reviews.
(28:45):
What's a dangerous game to play? I think we're inching
up on three now, so let's shoot for the move
and we will see you next week. Folks, go break
some records of your own in exact tact.
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben.
We're here with our super producer, Casey Pegram. I don't
know if he has a world record yet. And I'm
Nol the average man, Brown. Is that a world record?
Are you the most average? No, I'm quite average at
being average, but I hope to one day go out
for a world record in averageness. It turns out, Noll,
(00:46):
that there are so many world records. We always hear
about these things, where so and so has the largest
collection of matchsticks, which you know, going back on our
earlier common luminous from a previous episode, I could see
that being a world record. Well, it's also like, you know,
obviously we think of world records. We think of things
(01:08):
like being the fastest runner, or things that are measured
very specifically and precisely in sports in the Olympics, you know,
competitive sports like but then there's the fun dumb ones
like the match sticks or you know, the world's largest
postage stamp. I don't know if that's real, or like,
you know, the world's tallest man, which is a distinction
(01:30):
worthy of being you know, put in a a in
a document or a book. Shall we say, and we
know and love that book, and it's called the Guinness
Book of Records, and it's been around for a long time.
As it turns out, yes, it's been around for quite
a while. But the question is, if you're like a
lot of kids in the United States, the question is
where does this book come from? For most people, it
(01:54):
was a book. I don't know about you, but growing up,
there was a thing in my neck of the woods
called like the Scholastic Book Fair. Yeah, and one of
the hot items in the book fair was going to
be Guinness Book of World Records, followed only by scary
stories to tell the dark. Yeah, nailed it. Wow. Do
we go to the same school. I think everyone went
to that school. I think they toured around with that.
(02:15):
There were those cases. It looked like a rock show.
They were like these kind of like rolling cases and
they'd open them up and they'd be full of these
Scholastic paperbacks and you could also do a book order.
I remember that. But yeah, the Guinness Book was always
a hot ticket because it adds later editions, crazy like
holographic kind of covers, and it was very glossy and
a really cool eye popping book. You know, and it
(02:37):
was full of all kinds of gross stuff and weird stuff.
Kids love that stuff, but it turns out so do
drunk Irish people. Yes, speaking of fantastic segways, my friend,
the question for today's episode is where did this book
come from? Doesn't have anything to do with the Guinness Brewery,
(02:59):
because you know, it's completely possible that there's just some
guy named Rutherford Pte McGuinness who decided to calculate every
world record. Luckily, it turns out that is not the case. Yeah,
sort of like the case with the Michelin Stars for restaurants.
People ask the same question, like, is this Michelin like
the Michelin man the tire company. Well it turns out yeah,
(03:21):
they had a stake in the game is best publishing
a travel guide? And then you end up with this thing,
the Michelin Star system for restaurants, such as the case
with Guinness. So, as it turns out, the genesis of
the Guinness Book of Records can be traced back to
a conversation that took place during a hunting party in
County Wexford, which is in Ireland, not too far from Dublin.
(03:44):
That's right, Sir Hugh Erie Campbell Beaver. Will his name
rich Sir Hugh Ere or Eerie e y r E.
Campbell Beaver. Let's refer to him henceforth as Sir Hugh.
I'm gonna go with Sir Beaver, but you could do
(04:05):
sir Hugh if that's why, let's go with so okay,
So regardless of the nomenclature, we choose. Sir Hugh Beaver
was a British engineer and he was the managing director
of the Guinness Brewery at the time. He was hunting
birds with his friends in n Beaver shot at a
(04:27):
game bird and missed the shot winn awry, and this
led the party to wonder not only about how fast
this particular bird was, but it also led them to
ask what is the fastest bird in existence? And they
did not find any reference to this information across the
European continent. They were dumbfounded. Yeah, you would think that
(04:50):
that would be something that would be in like encyclopedia
or record books of some kind that to me is
a more run of the mill type record or at
least just something of scientific note that would be out there.
But no, they couldn't find it. So they figured, hey,
this could be cool as as a promotion for for
the brewery, you know, because he got guys in pubs
(05:11):
that are having drinks and trying to settle arguments. Why
not have a book you could whip out and say, Actually,
it's sort of the invention of Actually, I like the
way you phrase it. There, the lack of information haunted
Sir Hugh Beaver. Picture this otherwise content irishman laying in
(05:31):
bed at night, staring at the ceiling, tortured by this
idea that no one knows which bird in the world
is the fastest, which game bird is the fastest. I
don't want to live in that world. I don't know
what he was saying to himself. Yeah, I don't want
him to live in that world either, you know. And
there was no single official record, or, as he later realized,
(05:54):
there weren't many official records at all. So he did
something about it, right, I mean, he he didn't allow
himself to be tortured by these waking nightmares of not
being able to know what the fastest game foul was, No, sir.
He sought out a pair of twins by the names
of Norris and Ross Mick Hirter, and they were journalists.
(06:16):
More specifically, they were fact checkers. They were um intensely
uh pedantic fact checkers. They were known for their fastidiousness
when it came to verifying data and facts of any kind.
And they had worked um on Fleet Street, which was
I believe kind of a hub of publishing in London,
(06:39):
and they were involved in a lot of encyclopedias and
they would travel the world over to confirm various facts
because at the time obviously no Internet. You had to
go to the place, see the thing, confirm it, test it,
clock it, whatever you have, what have you? And then
they did that what is the world's largest bag of haggis?
Well this is the even four Like this is like
(07:01):
even just with their kind of more um encyclopedic ventures.
But they ended up being perfect for this promotion, right, yeah,
it was great casting and this was so our our friend,
right Mr excuse me, Sir Hugh Beaver is haunted for
about three years by this experience. So it's nineteen fifty
(07:22):
four when he gets this idea for promotion. Uh. The
McWherter twins are perfect casting. There's there's no other way
to say it. And together these folks team up in
a Triumvirate and Guinness Superlatives is incorporated. In November of
(07:42):
that year, they opened two rooms and they converted Gymnasium
on the top floor of Ludgate House at one oh
seven Fleet Street. And it took a lot of work
to make this book. Uh they you. You can look
on the official His Street page for Guinness World Records
and they refer to an initial research phase, but they
(08:07):
don't count it. And we can only imagine how much
research would be involved, because this is the first time
that someone tried to compile all the world records. Who
is the what's the fastest animal, what's the fastest game bird,
what's the tallest point on Earth right? Or the highest
elevation from sea level. I found a really interesting stat
(08:29):
about this. It comes from the current marketing director for
Guinness by the name of Stuart Claxton. He wrote a
cool article that I found on HuffPo and he says
that it took the twins sixteen weeks to put this
thing together and it costs thirty five thousand dollars And
luckily I've got my handy dandy inflation calculator here thirty
(08:52):
five grand. In nineteen fifty four, is equal to about
three hundred and twenty one thousand dollars today. Yeah, and
I found out an even more specific stat about how
long it took them thirteen and a half ninety hour
weeks including weekendsting weekends and bank holidays. So I mean
no small feet and you know the week orders putting
(09:13):
in all this backbreaking work for what at the time
just felt like a promotional item for a pint of ale.
Lagger Is it lagger? Is it Ale? I don't know
if I drink again stout it's stout. I hear that
it's very different when you're actually in Ireland. I'm sure
it isn't any any any folks from Ireland feel free
(09:36):
to to flame our inbox at ridiculous at how stuff
works dot Com for our ignorance about lagger versus Ale
versus stout. Invite us to grab a pint with you
in Ireland. I hear that it is different depending upon
the pub you visit. And I'm always curious what what
temperature is it supposed to be served at? We digress? Yeah,
(09:59):
we all of us. Any was that like little did
the mcquarters know that this, you know, seeming promotional item
for an alcoholic beverage. Shall he say, UH was gonna
blow up to be this massive cultural touchstone that has
gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies over
the years, and like you said, as a as a
(10:19):
staple and in book fairs the world over. Uh. In
nineteen fifty five, summer of nineteen fifty five, they publish
the book. There are fifty thousand copies, and as as
we have mentioned, they were mainly promotional items. But very
soon Sir Hugh Beaver realized that he had accidentally stumbled
(10:41):
into the zeitgeist. People the world over. They wanted to
know who the world's tallest man was, who the world's
shortest person, or the fastest person, or the fattest person,
or the person with the longest fingernails, was most average
person or or the most average person who I believe
still is John B. Smith. Yes, they were like ten
(11:02):
of him and they're all tied for average. Yeah. But
that's the thing. Like it was, the zeitgeis you think
in and of itself because it hit on a an
interest that many many people clearly shared. But it also
created this kind of outpouring of like obsession with record
keeping and record holding right, you had to kind of
(11:22):
invent new records. Where it became. It went from like
things like you're talking about the fastest or the tallest
or the biggest or whatever. It turned into things like
world record for most ballet dancers standing on point on
a pier uh and that was in Thessaloniki, Greece, on
October one, uh and it was for thirty seconds, three times.
(11:44):
So the further you get down the line, the more
specific they get. But what were some of the early
ones that were in that first edition, ben Oh? Sure.
The the earlier ones were things that still seem iconic
to us today, such as the world's tallest man who
ever lived, meaning both living or dead, That would be
Robert persh and Wadlow, who was eight ft eleven inches tall,
(12:07):
although nowadays, if we're talking about living people, the title
would go to Turkish national Sultan Cosen, who holds the
record at eight feet three inches currently. However, the interesting
thing about the evolution of the Guinness Book of World
Records is that of the thousands of applications that the
Guinness World Records Organization receives each month, most are for
(12:31):
new records in categories that did not exist in the
original publication in ninety five, things like the longest kiss.
The current record, by the way, is fifty eight hours,
thirty five minutes and fifty eight seconds. You have to
just twist your head. I don't know. I'm gonna show
you a pretty cool picture that look how bored this
lady looks. You're doing some head twisting and there would
(12:53):
have to be something otherwise there'll just be longest period
with lips pressed together. What qualifies a kiss? That's tough.
I think it's just the you know, fifty eight hours
is a long time to do any degree. The thing
that's neat too, though, is to this day the book
contains about the same number of records as it did
(13:14):
when it first came out in fifty five, and then
the next year in the USA in fifty six, which
is about four thousand and the original edition, there weren't
any color, glossy images like you see today. It was
all black and white photos, and there were a lot
of hand drawn illustrations of the more encyclopedic entries, like
things like the blue whale or any you know, animals,
(13:38):
largest mammal exactly. But some of the things that were
in that first edition that are still quite iconic today
are a man named John our Cobb held the world
record for land speed in a single direction at four
and three point one three five miles per hour. And
that was um a man by the name of Manningford
faith Jan graceful. These names, Lord Manningford faith Jan graceful.
(14:05):
I'm sorry. That's a cow, a British Friscian cow, Frescian
cow that have the highest lifetime milk yield at three
thirty pounds over seventeen years. But good gravy man. The
name your cow? That Manningford faith Jan graceful. Oh my heavens,
that sounds like a Toast of London name. Big time,
(14:28):
big time. I hear your climb vandango and then you've
got you. You guys never heard Toast of London. Check
out Toast of London. It's it's fantastic. Um it's on
Netflix right now, actually plug. But then you've got this
last one, which I really enjoy. There's a pub. There
was a pub called the Smith's Arms that held the
record for being the world's tiniest pub and it was
(14:48):
ten feet wide and four ft high four ft high.
That's what it says. That's interesting. There's also there's also
a record for the largest prenatal yoga class. That's the thing.
If you want to break that record, all you need,
as of our recordings day, is five hundred and fifty
four participants, So you gotta get five and fifty four
(15:10):
pregnant people to do yoga with you, and boom, you're
in the book. We have seen um, all three of us,
Noel Casey and I have seen some pretty specific and
strange records. There's one for spinning a basketball on a
toothbrush while holding it in your mouth. If you can
do it for more than twenty two point four one seconds. Congratulations.
(15:34):
That sounds like a Harlem Globetrotters kind of trick. It does,
it really does. There's there are records for the fastest
planting of rice seedlings. There are superlatives of plenty, you know.
We we've seen things like the person with the most
piercings or the most tattoos. Nowadays, the Guinness World Record
(15:57):
brand is owned by the Jim Pattison Group. They're the
same company that owns Ripley's. Believe it or not, did
you ever go to those museums? I've been to a few. Yeah,
they're kind of schlocky boardwalk tourist traps sort of. Uh,
they're fine. They're fine. Sounds like I'm poopling. I'm not.
I love them. I'm I'm fully into it. I do
no museum of death, I'll give you that. That's true.
(16:19):
They are a little bit you know, they have their
their morbid side, that's try, but they're way more lighthearted. Right.
We do have some good news as well about the
fate of the mc wertard twins, who were really the
driving force for this. I think is it a good
news bad news situation, because there's definitely some bad news.
(16:39):
It is a bad news good news. So from nineteen
seventy two on the mcwherder twins were familiar figures in
a show called record Breakers. Yeah. That actually stemmed from
a children's show called Blue Peter that I think he's
still running you this day, some permutation of it. But
record Breakers was much more specifically tied to the whole
(17:01):
Guinness thing, and it showcased the brothers um steadfastness at
clocking records and measuring success and failures in all these departments,
and they became kind of presenters television presenters in addition
to being behind the scenes folks. And they must have
had some phenomenal cognitive ability because part of the show
(17:24):
involved putting the Mick Werder's on the spot to have
an instant recall of obscure facts and figures, and they
were almost never wrong and almost never at a loss
for the numbers they were asked to recall. Another thing, Now,
I bet most of you boys watching have got hair
twice as long as your father's have four times as
long as your grandfather's. But do you know who grew
(17:46):
the longest hair in the world. Well, it was a
man called Swanna Pendra s and I his hair was
twenty six ft long. Low, I wouldn't like to wear
this the day after we've watched it. Oh, did you
know if you don't believe that, the longest bed on
record was that of Hans land Seth of Norway, and
his beard was seventeen and a half feet in length,
(18:09):
and he died in nineteen twenty seven and it had
to walk backwards all that. The longest king of niles
on record are there as of a Chinese priest who
top twenty seven years to grow them to a height
of or length of twenty two and three quarter inches,
very handy for scratching your ankles. So what happened next?
(18:29):
Here's where we find the darker turn that we we
mentioned briefly. Ross mc whorter was shot fatally by the
i r A on his London doorstep in nineteen seventy five.
That's right. He was a big, outspoken opponent of the
ira A and he used his celebrity to speak out
(18:53):
against them and pushed for a tougher response against the
these kind of republican terrorists by the British government. And
he actually offered a fifty thousand pound reward in nineteen
seventy five. That is a lot of cash for any
information that might um lead to the arrest of any
(19:14):
i ra A cell that was trying to carry out
these just deadly bombing campaigns all throughout London that were
happening at the time. And Norris mcwerder soldiered on as
the book's editor until nineteen eighties six. Afterwards, he continued
as an assistant editor, and he spent a lot of
(19:37):
time involved in political organizations, particularly what was known as
the Freedom Association. He wanted to reign back what he
saw as the over arching or overwhelming power of governments
and trade unions. He retired finally in nineteen six, and
he was seventy eight when he died playing a game
(19:58):
of tennis in two two thousand and four. And what's
interesting is that these brothers essentially created the foundation for
this publication that we still know today that hasn't changed
a ton. I mean, the whole idea is very much
the same as it was when they published the first edition, which,
by the way, you can find on eBay for only
(20:20):
about fifty pounds you can get a first edition Guinness
Record Book. Really, I was really shocked. I would have
thought that they would be more scarce, but I guess
maybe not a first edition. But it's definitely like among
those first several editions, because the first edition, I think
they only made ten thousand copies and then they just
kept having to go into reprints of that first edition.
(20:40):
But in that first edition, the brothers are not directly credited.
They are just called the compilers, the compilers, so there
was a bit of anonymity there. It's it's it's fascinating
you said that, And no, I think we would be
remiss if we did not address a question that everyone
listening is wondering, which is, how do we set our
(21:03):
own world records? Is it possible in this day and age.
Is it possible for a well meaning uh John Smith
in the crowd, John or Jane Smith to grab a
superlative all their own? The answer is yes, but it's complicated. Yeah.
(21:26):
And one of the reasons it's complicated is because, like
it's been around for so long, and the records have
to get more and more obscure and bizarre, and the
the the the conditions, right, like the whole ballerina standing
on tiptoe and jumping every thirty seconds or whatever. Like
you can set these bizarre guidelines, that's sure, that's a
(21:47):
record because no one else thought of those exact conditions
to do it. But as far as like breaking like
you know, a speed record or something like that, that's
a little more tough. But you know, you it's within
your grasp if you want to come with something weird
that no one thought of. But right it is not
by any means impossible. It really depends upon a couple
(22:08):
of things. The first thing that you will do if
you want to set a world record that goes into
print in the book is to find something that is measurable, provable,
has a single point to it, and can be beaten.
Unless it's the first ever version of something like the
first person to walk on an asteroid, right, or the
(22:31):
first person to eat the state of Texas. That's not
gonna happen. What if I just did the first person
to hold a pencil in my closed eyelid by the
eraser for twelve minutes and no one has thought of
that particular thing to do yet, could I could I
technically qualify if if no one has done that one. Yeah,
there's a little bit of subjectivity here because the editors
(22:54):
or the compilers must think it's interesting. And I think
that's specific enough that they would they would consider it interesting,
especially if you did it for like twelve hours or something.
I want to do it with twelve hours. I want
to do it for a maximum ten minutes. Well, you
could get it. You could get it for ten minutes.
But if you said it at ten minutes, what's going
(23:16):
to happen? I guarantee you is. Next year there's gonna
be some JABRONI who goes for eleven minutes. It's not
gonna be me. It's probably not gonna be Casey. I
don't care. I just want to be in the book.
You just want to be So. Another thing people do
is to set group records the world's largest thriller dance,
for instance. Right we talked about prenatal yoga. Just if
(23:39):
you want to set a world record, get a bunch
of your friends or a bunch of strangers to do
one very specific thing with you for as long as possible.
Which the the organization on that boggles the mind. You know,
I guess I would try to. I don't know if
I would beat the largest thriller dance. That was a
(23:59):
record in Mexico with more than thirteen thousand people. Uh.
It was on Michael Jackson's post humus birthday. They all
did the thriller dance. So, as as you can see,
research is very important. And I'll anticipate the question that
a lot of us have. Is there a person who
(24:20):
holds the record for holding the most world records? The
answer is yes. His name is Ashrita Furman. One of
his records is for pushing an orange for a mile
with his nose, and uh he famously researched the type
of orange to use. So you need to pick your
battles carefully, and you need to be aware that you
(24:42):
can break a record without spending a dime. Uh. The
record breaking is free and open to everyone. They only
ask that you give them six to eight weeks for
existing categories and eight to twelve weeks for new ideas.
So this pencil in the by the eraser that would
that would qualify for a new idea. And every record
(25:05):
has a set of guidelines you have to follow. You
can apply online at Guinness World Records dot com h
and they'll send these guidelines to you via email. There
is uh, there's there's a great piece of inspiration here
by a record breaker named Hannah Bosley. She, along with
three d and twenty four other people, holds the world
(25:29):
record for the largest gathering of people dressed as penguins.
And according to Hannah Boseley, breaking record is not as
hard to organize as you might first anticipate. So just
get going and if you want to do it, you will.
And a streeta Furman who you mentioned, is holding the
record for the most records at two hundred. I believe
you said. Um. It also goes to show you don't
(25:50):
have to be some sort of superhuman or athlete. Uh.
This this person is a health food store manager from
queens Um and the first record that he broke was
in nineteen seventy nine where he did twenty seven thousand
jumping Jack's uh. And then he also holds the record
for rope skipping on a pogo stick. He did that
(26:10):
at Cambodia's Angor Watt. Also he hula hooped at Australia's
Air of Rock and he traveled the entire length of
Paul Revere's ride in forward rolls. So in forward rolls
like hum somersaults. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. So you
know it's up for grabs if if you believe it,
(26:32):
go for it. And I think a good way to
wrap this up is to read the forward of that
original Guinness Book of Records, which was by a man
who at the time was the chairman of the Guinness
Park Royal Brewery. And speaking of amazing titles, his name
was the Right Honorable Earl of Iva and he has
(26:53):
kg c B and CMG UM titles after that, and
their various military orders that he was a part of.
And he prefaces that first edition with this forward. Wherever
people congregate to talk, they will argue, and sometimes the
joy lies in the arguing and would be lost if
there was any definite answer. But more often the argument
(27:15):
takes place on a dispute of fact, and it can
be very exasperating if there is no immediate means of
settling the argument. Who was the first to swim the channel?
Where is England's deepest well or Scotland's highest tree or
Ireland's oldest church? How many died in history's worst rail crash?
Who gained the biggest majority in parliament? What is the
highest point in our country? And so on? How much
(27:38):
heat these innocent questions can raise. Guinness in producing this
book hopes that it may assist in resolving many such disputes.
And may we hope turn heat into light. Fantastic and
well said. We only want to add when you are
considering breaking a world record or forming a new one. Uh,
(27:58):
Guinness will not accept in anything that harms animals or
is dangerous for the would be record breaker. So you
can't do the longest time without sleep. Apparently you can't
do heaviest fish because people were over feeding their fish monsters. Hey,
if you are working at breaking a record, or you
(28:20):
have a fun idea for a record that maybe has
yet to be dreamt up. Please shoot us an email
it ridiculous at how stuff works. You can also send
us a note on Facebook or Ridiculous History. We've got
an Instagram in ridiculous History, and leave us a review
on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. We would
be much in your debt. Yeah, maybe we can set
the We we can set the record for the most reviews.
(28:45):
What's a dangerous game to play? I think we're inching
up on three now, so let's shoot for the move
and we will see you next week. Folks, go break
some records of your own in exact tact.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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