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Guinness Book of World Records is the collection of fastest, tallest, longest, shortest and other facts and feats around us.
The story of the book began on May 4, 1951. Sir Hugh Beaver, the director of the Guinness Breweries, argued with his friends about what the fastest game bird was. Later the author decided that records and sport achievements was a nice topic to talk on in the pubs. He had an even better idea to create a book where people could find answers on puzzling questions.
Now Guinness Book of World Records is a vast collection of thousands of human and natural achievements. Some records are surprising.
For example, Tran Van Hay, a 73-year-old man from Vietnam has the longest hair in the world. He stopped cutting his hair 42 years ago and now they are over 6 metres long.
Or take Sultan Kösen from Turkey who is the tallest person on Earth. He is 2.51 metres tall.
On the contraty, the shortest person is an 18-year-old Khagendra Thapa Magar. This teenager from Nepal is just 67 cm tall, and is called “little Buddha”.
But there are people with much more amazing records.
The elastic man exists not only in comic stories and movies such as Fantastic four. Garry Turner from England looks like an ordinary person… until he does unbelievable tricks to his body. He has the world’s stretchiest skin.
Two Mexican brothers Larry and Danny Gomez love doing tricks too. Though not only tricks amaze people, but also their unusual appearance. These guys are the hairiest people on our planet.
Some of the Guinness records are mouth-watering.
On May 2010, a Canadian cook created the biggest hamburger in the world which weighed 268 kilos. Yum, yum…
There were rather sweaty records.
In 2009 a Canadian strongman Kevin Fast pulled one of the heaviest aircrafts on Earth.
Some of the achievements are really dangerous.
In the year 2000 an American Dean Sheldon put the largest scorpion in his mouth and held it there for 18 seconds.
But Joe Kittinger, US pilot, set up an even more incredible record. In August 1960 he skydived from the height of 31 km. It’s by far the highest parachute jump ever.
The Guinness book of Records includes also the names of famous people.
Michael Jackson, a king of pop music, has its place in Guinness world records as the best entertainer of all time.
In 1997 a popular saxophonist Kenny G played the longest note ever recorded and got a place in the book.
Guinness world record book unites people of different nationalities and social backgrounds. Today it’s one of the best selling books in the world and it’s not a surprise since a human being is always curious about the abilities of its body and surprises of the nature.