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Guinness World Records is celebrating its 70th anniversary and to mark the publication of their first volume on 27 August 1955, the organisation has unveiled 70 unclaimed records.
Craig Glenday, GWR editor-in-chief, said: “As we mark the 70th anniversary of the release of our first edition back in the 1950s, we’re proud to be building on 70 amazing years as the global curator of superlative facts and achievements.”
“We’ve seen so many iconic moments, the most amazing feats of strength and skill and endurance from talent across the globe and long may it continue,” he added. “We’re now looking forward and celebrating the current – and next – generation of record-breakers.”
Here are some of our favourite new records that are just begging to be broken (read: tempting achievements the Euronews Culture team are seriously contemplating attempting):
- Most whoopee cushions sat on in one minute
- Furthest distance bottle flip
- Most high-fives in 30 seconds
- Fastest 400-metre sack race
- Fastest time to build a five-storey playing-card pyramid
- Most kisses in 30 seconds by a pair
- Most leapfrog jumps in one hour by a team of two
- Most seat drops on a trampoline in one hour
- Most anchovies eaten in a minute
- Most shoelaces tied in a bow in one minute (team of two)
- Most stackable potato-based crisps eaten in one minute
- Most table tennis balls held in one hand
- Most T-shirts put on in 30 seconds (individual)
- Fastest time to ascend the height of Everest by bicycle
Ok, maybe that last one is a bit too ambitious – but the T-shirts and the anchovies feel like they’re well within our wheelhouse. Watch this space.
For those of you wondering, the inspiration for the Guinness World Records book came from a debate at a shooting party in the early 1950s in County Wexford, Ireland, which was attended by Sir Hugh Beaver, then-managing director of the Guinness Brewery.
Sir Hugh and his hosts debated the following question: “What’s the fastest game bird in Europe?”
They failed to find an answer to that question in any reference book. So, in 1954, Sir Hugh set up a Guinness promotion based on the settling of pub arguments. He recruited researchers from Fleet Street to compile a book of facts and figures, before publishing the first volume of the Guinness Book Of Records.
Since then, the franchise has sold more than 155 million books worldwide, and we now know who has the largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia (Elizabeth West, UK, with more than 5,000 pieces), that American Great Dane Zeus holds the title for the tallest dog (1.046 metres), and that the length of the longest female tongue is 9.75cm (Chanel Tapper, US).
Happy 70th, GWR.