Guinness World Records: Beginnings
Hugh Beaver, British Engineer and Industrialist, Founded the Book
The Guinness World Records, originally, the Guinness Book of Records, was founded by British inudstrialist and engineer Sir Hugh Beaver. The book itself holds a world record as the annually published best-selling copyrighted book of all-time.
It has an interesting beginning. Initially, it was intended to settle drunken discussions that turned into heated arguments in a pub.
Sir Hugh Beaver Began it All
The story goes that in 1951, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery in Britain, Sir Hugh Beaver, went on a shooting expedition in the English countryside. That night, with few pints of stout to drink along with some of his drinking colleagues, an argument erupted over whether the fastest game bird in Europe was the grouse or the golden plover.
As sometimes in debates that start from a mild discussion, theirs continued to rage. Beaver thought and realised that disagreements of this nature happen in pubs across the United Kingdom. He decided to commission a book that would give conclusive answers to all sorts of arguments.
McWhirter Brothers Fact-finding Agency
Twin brothers, Norris and Ross McWhirter, who ran a fact-finding agency in London, were hired to find and hunt down all sorts of superlative facts. By 1951, the deepest point of any ocean is pinpointed in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean to be 10,911 metres.
First Edition of Guinness Book of Records
The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was bound on August 27, 1955. Although intended only for the pubs, it immediately went to become number one on the British bestseller lists.
The original version was encyclopaedic in tone, outlining records such as the highest rainful in 24 hours which was 116.8 centimetres, during a typhoon in the Philippines in 1911, and by then also identified the fastest fame bird in Europe, the grouse, at 70 km/h. American Robert Wadlow also appeared in the first edition as the world's tallest man.
Guinness Book Progresses
The McWhirlers' brothers were extremely successful with the book, and so was the intensity in their political life. The brothers offered a £50,000 reward for the information leading to the conviction of those responsible when the IRA set off several bombs in London during the early 1970s. In November 1975, Ross McWhierter was shot dead outside his house. Despite the demise of his brother, Norris McWhirter continued on with the Guinness Book of Records, which was by then a household name all over the world. He died in April 2004 after suffering a heart attack.
In 1975, Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Governor of California, wins Mr Olympia for a record sixth time.
Guinness World Records Today
Many people since then have attempted challenges in order to win a Guinness world record. Entries in the book are now a mix of serious and the peculiar, including the longest female beard, and many more unbelievable facts.
The book, now titled Guinness World Records, continues to sell over million copies in numerous countries and translated in almost forty languages. There is a Guinness World Records Website.
Guinness World Records Museum, Hollywood
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