Category:
World Records
World Records
Walking 53 miles dressed as a curlew
A man is walking 53 miles (85km) in a homemade bird costume to raise awareness and funds for conservation projects.
Matt Trevelyan, a farming officer for Nidderdale National Landscape, began the two-day challenge on Saturday and has been walking along the Nidderdale Way.
He crafted the 10ft-long (3m) costume of a Eurasian curlew - Europe's largest wading bird - out of polystyrene and bamboo.
Matt Trevelyan, a farming officer for Nidderdale National Landscape, began the two-day challenge on Saturday and has been walking along the Nidderdale Way.
He crafted the 10ft-long (3m) costume of a Eurasian curlew - Europe's largest wading bird - out of polystyrene and bamboo.
More info: BBC.com
Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 24, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Birds, Costumes and Masks, World Records, Fur, Hides, Pelts, Scales, Feathers and Other Bodily Coverings
The $300 trillion court judgment
March 1922: Superior Judge J.R. Welch of San Jose, CA ruled that George Jones had to pay Henry B. Stuart a grand total of $304,840,332,912,684.16.The reason was that in 1897 Stuart had loaned Jones $100, and the two had signed a contract agreeing that the debt would grow by 10% a month, compounded, until paid back.
Jones had then left the state and forgotten about the debt. But Stuart hadn't forgotten, and when Jones returned a quarter century later, Stuart sued him. The judge agreed that the debt was still owed, and by the terms of the original agreement had grown to over $300 trillion.
Of course, Jones promptly declared bankruptcy. But I'm pretty sure the ruling remains the highest court judgment in history. Though because it was essentially a meaningless judgment, it's typically overlooked. For instance, Google AI says that the largest court judgment ever was the $206 billion Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
Jackson Citizen Patriot - Mar 27, 1922
San Francisco Examiner - Mar 2, 1922
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 09, 2025 -
Comments (3)
Category: Money, Outrageous Excess, World Records, Lawsuits, 1920s
How many green beans would you eat for $1.50
A question for the ages.
Detroit Free Press - May 2, 1971
This raises the question of how many green beans would someone eat just to claim the world record for eating them? According to the site MajorLeagueEating.com, Crazy Legs Conti holds the record for eating the most: 2.71 pounds of them in six minutes.
That doesn't seem like that much to me. And in the video below "tannermancan" eats 5.125 lbs of green beans in less than 5 minutes. He doesn't acknowledge setting a new record. But it seems to me like he must have.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 15, 2025 -
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Category: World Records, Advertising, Vegetables, 1970s
The most coconuts smashed around a person blindfolded in one minute
How many coconuts can a blindfolded man smash with a sledgehammer? For added interest, those coconuts are positioned around another man's body.The new world record for this challenge, certified by Guinness, is 69 coconuts.
I assume the blindfolded guy can actually see. But if that's the case, why is Guinness certifying the record?
More info: upi.com
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 04, 2025 -
Comments (5)
Category: World Records
Giant Virgin Mary
Another oddity from my recent southern Arizona trip:About 100 miles south of Tucson, in the town of Hereford, a 31-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary has been erected on the side of a hill. It's so close to the border that, if you stand in the right place, you can see both the Virgin Mary statue and the border wall in the valley below.
The statue was built by Pat and Jerry Chouinard in the 1990s. It stands alongside a 75-foot-tall Celtic cross. But giant crosses seem less odd than giant Virgin Marys. (Unless the crosses are really giant, see our previous post "The largest cross in the western hemisphere").
How does this giant Virgin Mary compare to other giant Virgin Marys around the world? It's not close to being the tallest. The record goes to the Mother of All Asia statue in the Philippines which stands 322 ft high. The American record (9th tallest in the world) goes to Our Lady of the Rockies (90-feet-tall) in Butte, Montana.
source: gcatholic.org
There's a 33-foot-tall statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Windsor, Ohio. That may be the second-tallest in America. Assuming that Our Lady of Guadalupe is the same as the Virgin Mary. I'm not sure if place-specific Marian apparitions are considered to be equivalent to the original Mary.
That would make the Virgin Mary in Arizona the third-tallest in the United States.
More info: Roadside America
Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 19, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Religion, World Records, Statues and Monuments, Arizona
Thickest Tongue
Ambra Collina of Italy recently earned a Guinness World Record for having the thickest tongue.I've never seen anyone be able to thicken their tongue like she does. It's definitely not an ability I possess. No matter how hard I try, my tongue remains the same circumference. Is this some unique, bizarro talent she possesses, or are many people able to thicken their tongue?
More info: upi.com
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 13, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Body, World Records
The youngest person to bicycle across the United States
In 1973, 11-year-old Becky Gorton bicycled from Olympia, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts in 47 days. She was accompanied by her entire family. Though her dad (who was attorney general of Washington) got hit by a car en route, so he had to complete part of the journey in a car.
Becky Gorton and her family at the end of their trip.
Longview Daily News - July 21, 1973
The feat earned her a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person ever to bicycle coast-to-coast. But since then Guinness seems to have stopped tracking this record. Probably because it didn't want to encourage ever younger children to attempt the feat.
However, younger people definitely have subsequently biked across the country. Though it's difficult to say who's officially the current record holder.
In 2014, 9-year-old C.J. Burford got some publicity for biking cross-country. But I don't think he set the record because in 1995 8-year-old Starr Moss was reported as having biked across the country with his 13-year-old brother.
The SF Chronicle article about their feat never mentioned that Starr set a record. So perhaps there's someone even younger who managed to do it.
If this is the same Starr Moss, he's now, appropriately, working as a "Bike Share Planner" for Lyft.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 01, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Bicycles and Other Human-powered Vehicles, World Records, 1970s
World’s Widest Wig
At what point is a wig no longer a wig?More info: upi.com
Posted By: Alex - Thu May 30, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: World Records, Headgear, Hair and Hairstyling
Miniature Golf Record
Page 18 of Pawtucket Times, published in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Tuesday, November 4th, 1930
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 30, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Sports, World Records, 1930s
Sailor, the World Record Frisbee Dog
An article here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed May 29, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Sports, Toys, World Records, Dogs, Twenty-first Century
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