History of Guinness World Records

One of the most popular books published every year is the Guinness Book of 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 by Irish twins Ross and Norris McWhirter, who actually published the first Guinness Book of Records in Britain as early as 1955. What many people don’t realize is that the book was commissioned by a famous brewery in Ireland. namely the Guinness Brewery.

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

The original idea is rumored to have arisen in 1951 when a certain Sir Hugh Beaver, who at the time was managing director of the Guinness Empire, was participating in a shooting party. 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 in his reference books in the Castlebridge House library, he suddenly realized that the books were a bit vague with the answer.

Then the idea occurred 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 has is that it is a book most likely to be stolen from America’s public libraries.