History of Guinness World Records

One of the most popular books published each year is the Guinness Book of World Records. This is now more commonly known as the Guinness World Records. This popular book narrates things like the best and the worst or the longest and the shortest or many other recordable facts from around the world.

This book is credited to Irish twins Ross and Norris McWhirter, who published the first Guinness Book of Records in Britain in 1955. However, many people don’t realize that the book was commissioned by a famous brewery in Ireland, namely, the Guinness brewery.

Guinness came up with the idea of ​​making the book to further promote their product and generate more revenue for their company. Initially, the book was just a way for people to learn the answers to many of the bar bets that were running at the time.

It is rumored that the original idea arose in 1951 when a certain Sir Hugh Beaver, who at the time was managing director of the Guinness Empire, was involved in a shooting group. He somehow he had an exchange of words with another person about the fastest bird in Europe. They argued over whether it was Koshin’s golden plover or the grouse.

While trying to find the answer from his reference books in his Castlebridge House library, he suddenly realized that the books were a bit vague with the answer.

Then the idea came to him that maybe a book like this could be quite interesting. This was the beginning of the Guinness Book of Records.

This annual book has sold millions of copies since it was first published in 1955. Interestingly, it now holds a record as the most popular and best-selling of all copyrighted serial books in the world.

An unenviable record this book holds is that it is the most likely book to be stolen from public libraries in the United States.