Category:
World Records

Niralamba Purna Chakrasana World Record

World records for extreme yoga moves. Youth evidently confers a big advantage in being able to do this. It would be even more impressive to see this done by someone over 60.



This move looks like its straight out of The Exorcist.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 18, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Exercise and Fitness, World Records

World’s Largest Yo-Yo, 1974

Back in 1974, MIT Professor James Williams led students in creating the world's largest yo-yo. From the MIT Black History site:

When the 35-pound contraption, made of two bicycle wheels, was ready, Williams took it to the roof of a 21-story building at MIT. He anchored the cord to an I beam, hooked up a motor which jerked the line rhythmically like a finger and let the yo-yo drop. The wheels, revolving up to 1,000 times a minute, reached a speed of more than 80 miles an hour. Then, the yo-yo climbed more than two-thirds of the way back up the 400-pound-test-weight nylon cord...

Williams was offered $5,000 for the yo-yo by a Las Vegas casino (“I feel sensitive about selling it”), and laughed off suggestions that he drop it from Canada’s tallest structure, Toronto’s 1,800-foot Canadian National Tower. “There were all sorts of radio and TV offers,” he says wearily.




Arizona Daily Star - Feb 5, 1974



The record no longer stands. According to Guinness, the current record holder is Beth Johnson who, in 2012, successfully tested a yo-yo measuring 11 ft 10.75 in diameter and weighing 4,620 lb.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 24, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: World Records, 1970s

Edmund Love and His Restaurant Quest

In 1964, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST profiled Edmund G. Love, who intended to eat his way through approximately 5000 NYC restaurants.





By 1973, when THE NEW YORK TIMES took notice, his quest had ballooned to 6000.





His 1990 obituary in the NYT says he managed to hit 1750 of them.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 07, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Addictions, Bums, Hobos, Tramps, Beggars, Panhandlers and Other Streetpeople, Eccentrics, Food, Restaurants, World Records, Twentieth Century

Champion Chicken Picker Ernest Hausen

Ernie Hausen, of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, had one great talent. He could pick the feathers off of chickens really, really fast.

When he started picking chickens, in 1904, it took him a full half hour to defeather one. Since he was paid 5 cents per chicken, he wasn't making much money. Over the years he sped up. By 1922, he won a Chicken Picking Championship by picking his chicken clean in 6 seconds. He topped this in 1939, upping his time to 3.5 seconds. As far as I know, that record stands to this day.

His technique:

Hausen dips the chickens in 164-degree water, quickly runs his large, powerful fingers across the wings, from the tips inward; does the same with the legs, finally peels the feathers from the back and breast. Suddenly the bird is as bare as a billiard ball.... He tells of picking 1,472 birds in 7 hours and 45 minutes in a contest.
-Ithaca Journal - Feb 7, 1946

More info: Hoard Museum

Wisconsin State Journal - Jan 2, 1946



Appleton Post-Crescent - Jul 28, 1936



McAllen Monitor - Oct 28, 1946



Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 27, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Farming, Human Marvels, World Records

Vasectomy World Record

As far as I can tell, the world record for the most voluntary vasectomies performed in a single day (and at a single event) was set on December 5, 1987 in Bangkok, when 1214 men received the operation. This beat the previous record of 1202, set in 1983.

Interesting how the article specifies these were voluntary vasectomies. Is there a separate record for involuntary ones?

Anyway, 'most vasectomies' appears to be a category that Guinness doesn't bother to cover.

Des Moines Register - Dec 6, 1987

Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 19, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: World Records, Surgery

Thirteen Daughters, Then a Boy

I wonder if this 1953 record has ever been broken?

Story here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 23, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Family, Children, World Records, 1950s

Avengers: Endgame, 200 times

Back in April, I posted about a guy who had set a world record for “most cinema productions attended - same film.” Specifically, he had watched Captain Marvel in a movie theater 116 times.

Since Marvel films have, for some reason, inspired these super-fan stunts, I speculated that the then imminent release of Avengers: Endgame would lead to a new attempt at a record. And sure enough, Agustin Alanis of Riverview, Florida is going for it. I believe he's already set a new record, but since Avengers: Endgame is still in theaters, he's still watching it, and is shooting for a total of 200 viewings. This is especially impressive since the movie clocks in at around 3 hours.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jun 23, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Movies, World Records

World record for most severed hands reattached in one week

As far as I can tell, their claim to this record remains unchallenged.

Palm Beach Post - Nov 1, 1997

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 26, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: World Records, Surgery, 1990s

Shortest Commercial Flight

Odd Trivia: The shortest scheduled commercial flight in the world takes a mere 90 seconds. It's the Loganair flight between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray. From cntraveler.com:

In good conditions, Loganair’s 1.7-mile jaunt between the Scottish islands of Westray (population: 640) and Papa Westray (population: 72) in the Orkneys, off the north coast of the mainland, can take under a minute. Headwinds can make the flight a whopping two-and-a-half minutes. Retired police officer Graham Maben is one of the route’s regulars; the 70-year-old Orkney native now runs a tour business on the islands, and estimates he has taken the flight around 40 times over the past 15 years.

Posted By: Alex - Sat May 11, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: World Records, Air Travel and Airlines

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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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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.

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