Unusual World Records

Somewhere out there, a person is right now attempting to do something so pointless, so bizarre, and so wonderfully specific that no human has ever thought to measure it before. That instinct — the urge to be the best in the world at something, anything — is one of humanity's stranger quirks. And it has produced a catalogue of achievements that range from the awe-inspiring to the genuinely unsettling.

Consider the sheer variety. There are records for speed and strength, sure. But there are also records for how long a person can keep a straight face, how many grapes can be caught in the mouth in one minute, and how quickly someone can arrange a set of garden gnomes. The catalogue of official human accomplishment is far weirder than most people realise.

Here's a genuinely odd one: the record for the longest time spent standing motionless once ran past 20 hours, which sounds relaxing until the leg cramps set in. Then there's the man who solved a Rubik's Cube while skydiving. And the largest gathering of people dressed as Albert Einstein, which somehow needed to exist.

Why do people do this? Some chase glory. Some chase money. And a surprising number seem to chase nothing more than the quiet satisfaction of a line in a very famous book.

That famous book, incidentally, was originally dreamed up to settle pub arguments. A brewery executive couldn't figure out which game bird was the fastest in Europe, found no reference to answer him, and decided the world needed one. The result became one of the best-selling copyrighted titles of all time.

The physical extremes are just as staggering. People have grown their nails and hair to lengths that defy comfort and common sense. Others have eaten things that should not, under any circumstances, be eaten. And a rare few have made careers out of folding their bodies into shapes that seem to ignore the rules of the human skeleton.

From the tallest humans and dogs to the strangest eating feats ever verified, this collection covers the remarkable, the ridiculous, and the outright improbable.

Ready to find out how much of this strange world of records has actually stuck? Take the quiz and see where the knowledge lands.