Category:
World Records
World Records
Death by Snails
November 1979: World-champion snail eater Marc Quinquandon died soon after eating 72 snails in three minutes and four seconds.More info: Death of a snails man (Washington Post - Nov 29, 1979)
San Bernardino County Sun - Nov 27, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 10, 2018 -
Comments (11)
Category: Death, Food, World Records, 1970s
Jim Purol, world-record smoker
One of comedian Jim Purol's recurring gags was to stuff record-setting amounts of things in his mouth, especially cigarettes and cigars. For instance, he set a Guinness world record for smoking seven packs of cigarettes simultaneously. Ironically, he was a non-smoker. From the LA Times (July 18, 1987):His trick of broadening a yawn into a crater crammed with seven packs of gaspers also has given Purol, 35, a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. He scored a second mention by smoking 38 pipes at one puffing. He opened wider, gritted his tonsils, and earned a third entry in 1983 by smoking 40 finger-fat stogies at the same time.
Paradoxically, Purol is a nonsmoker. It gets better. His world cigar smoking record was a charity performance benefiting the American Lung Assn.
"I hate smoking," he explained. "I perform the stunts as a statement against smoking. Lookit this picture of me with cigarettes stuffed in my face. This is glamorous? It's disgusting."
Paradoxically, Purol is a nonsmoker. It gets better. His world cigar smoking record was a charity performance benefiting the American Lung Assn.
"I hate smoking," he explained. "I perform the stunts as a statement against smoking. Lookit this picture of me with cigarettes stuffed in my face. This is glamorous? It's disgusting."
Jim Purol (left) and Mike Papa each smoking 135 cigarettes in five minutes - October 1978
Weekly World News - Jan 1, 1985
Philadelphia Daily News - Apr 22, 1983
Back in 1976, he also set the world's duration drumming record by drumming for 320 hours.
Jasper Herald - June 30, 1976
Posted By: Alex - Tue May 15, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: World Records, Smoking and Tobacco
23-mile paper chain
Butch Baker of Four Oaks, North Carolina began making a paper chain in 1979. The chain is now 23-miles long, weighs 2300 pounds, and takes up much of his living room. And he’s still working on it. (He knows it's length because he's been measuring it as he makes it.)The problem is, Butch is 78 and doesn't know what will happen to the chain when he dies.
More info: news observer
image source: Four Oaks Journal - Feb 2016 (pdf)
Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 12, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: Hobbies and DIY, World Records
Most Cockroach-Infested Home
In early 1997, Combat Insect Control ran a contest offering a $5000 cash prize to the person with the most cockroach-infested home.The winner, from over 1000 people who entered, was Mary Esposito of Forest Park, Georgia. She complained that she had roaches living in her dishwasher, refrigerator, oven, coffeemaker, VCR, wallpaper, dresser drawers, and bathtub faucet. An entomologist hired by Combat estimated there were 75,000 roaches in her home.
Somehow I don't think that "most cockroach-infested home" is a record that will ever make its way into Guinness.
Orlando Sentinel - June 12, 1997
Palm Beach Post - Mar 16, 1997
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 27, 2017 -
Comments (1)
Category: Insects, World Records, 1990s
Endurance Bowling
Back in 1930, George Kinder of Milwaukee set a record for endurance bowling. He bowled for 50 hours 20 mins, rolling 362 ½ games. He had to quit because "his thumb was badly split, blistered and torn, and he couldn't grasp the ball."
Courier News - Jan 13, 1930
41 years later, Richard Dewey of Kansas City set a new endurance record. He bowled for 98 hrs 45 mins, rolling 1220 games. But Dewey also had to quit because of injuries:
During his four days on the lanes, Dewey suffered a sprained right arm, severe blisters and swollen fingers. To overcome the problem of the sprained arm, he alternated arms, throwing left, then right-handed. To take the pressure off swollen and blistered fingers, his eight-pound bowling ball was drilled out every 20 hours. But after he was unable to stop the bleeding from his fingers, officials said enough was enough.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - May 26, 1971
More recently, in 2010, Stephen Shanabrook of Plano, Texas set a new record, bowling for 134 hrs 57 min. However, he completed only 643 games, which is only about half the number Dewey rolled in less time. Nevertheless, according to Guinness, Shanabrook is the current record holder.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 19, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Sports, World Records
World’s Largest Corkscrew
I just returned from visiting family in the Northern Neck region of Virginia. One of the oddities I encountered there was the giant corkscrews which stand at the entrance to the Dog and Oyster Vineyard in Irvington. Inside the vineyard, they'll tell you that these, at 40-feet tall, are the largest corkscrews in the world, and also that they're functional. If you bring a giant bottle of wine, they could open it.
I don't think this claim has been officially verified in any way. And since the corkscrews are anchored to the ground, I think they'd have trouble opening anything.
Another claimant to the title of World's Largest Corkscrew is a giant corkscrew that stands outside the Corkscrew Liquor Store in Hurley, Wisconsin. According to the Chicago Tribune it's only 24-feet tall, so the Dog and Oyster corkscrews have it beat.
image source: waymarking.com
According to Guinness, the record for the largest corkscrew goes to one that was only 5ft 8.1 in long that was created for the Watterfaescht festival in 2015. It was actually demonstrated to work, which I assume that Guinness considers to be essential for claiming the title.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 07, 2017 -
Comments (1)
Category: World Records
Around the world on commercial airlines
In 1979, two Vancouver businessmen, Orst Perry and Adolf Schiel, set a world record for traveling around the world on commercial airlines. They started in Vancouver and ended up in Vancouver. They did this in 54 hours, 42 minutes. It cost them $7000 each.I can think of a lot better ways to spend $7000 than sitting on a plane for several days. But it seems that others have pursued this same record. A press release from Nov 2016 says that Brother Michael Bartlett set a new record for flying around the world on commercial airlines by doing it in 57 hours, 17 minutes.
That's slower than the time set in 1979, but I'm guessing that Bartlett must have adhered to stricter rules. It says that he had to "cross the equator and land at points that are approximately 108 degrees apart and roughly on the same north–south longitude."
Notre Dame Observer - Feb 28, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 30, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: World Records, Air Travel and Airlines, 1970s
Longest Sermon Ever
Back in 1937, Rev. A. Earl Lee set a record for preaching the longest sermon ever, preaching continuously for 21 hours. "He ate regular meals, preaching between bites, changed his clothes, and even took a bath while continuing the sermon by talking into a portable microphone."
Bradford Evening Star - June 29, 1937
However, it seems that world's longest sermon has been a hotly contested record. Today the record is up to 53 hours and 11 minutes. That record was set in 2014 by Florida pastor Zach Zehnder. Although it seems that he took some brief breaks for power naps. Is that allowed? Apparently so. In the video below you can watch the last 11 minutes of his sermon — and most of the rest of it is on YouTube if, for some reason, you want to sit through it.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 21, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: World Records, 1930s
Most Pills Swallowed
One of the world records that Guinness no longer tracks is that for "most pills swallowed." But from the late 1970s to the 1990s it consistently awarded this to one C.H.A. Kilner of Malawi (or perhaps Zimbabwe — accounts differ), who apparently took A LOT of pills following a pancreatectomy (removal of his pancreas) on June 9, 1967.The exact number of pills taken by Kilner progressively increased over time. The 1978 edition of Guinness put it at 280,131 pills. A year later it had reached 311,136. By 1981 it was 359,061. And Kilner finally stopped taking pills on June 19, 1988, having reached a total of 565,939 pills.
Later reports did the math and figured out that this worked out to 73 pills a day, and that "if all the pills he had taken were laid out end to end they would form an unbroken line two miles 186 yards long."
Where exactly was Guinness getting this information from? I have no idea, because they seem to be the only source for it. I can't find any record of this Kilner guy in medical journals.
Guinness Book of Records - 1978 Edition
Detroit Free Press - Dec 4, 1978
Logansport Pharos Tribune - Feb 7, 1982
Guinness Book of Records - 1995 Edition
Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 06, 2016 -
Comments (2)
Category: Medicine, World Records
World record for using your mouth to catch a grape dropped from the greatest height
Brent Fraser hopes that he is now the official record holder for this achievement after mouth-catching a grape dropped from a balloon 101-feet high. He's submitted all the necessary documentation to Guinness and is awaiting their decision.He began dreaming of claiming this record after realizing that he had a "natural knack" for catching things with his mouth. He practiced by having grapes slingshot at high speed at his face.
More info at Valley News.
It reminds me of the old fad for catching a baseball dropped from the greatest height. That didn't end well.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 30, 2016 -
Comments (2)
Category: World Records
| Get WU Posts by Email | |
|---|---|
| Who We Are |
|---|
| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |