No Beer On St Patrick’s Day? (WFOTD)

When you think of St Patrick’s Day, I’m sure that for most of you, the first thing that springs to mind is beer. Lots and lots of beer, partying in pubs, drinking Guinness out of taps and generally consuming copious amounts of alcohol. However, this wasn’t always the case.

In 1903, Saint Patrick’s Day became an official public holiday in Ireland. This was introduced by the Irish MP James O’Mara. O’Mara later introduced a law which required pubs to be closed on March 17 because drinking was getting ‘out of hand’ and he felt that the holiday should be celebrated religiously.

The law was only overturned in 1970, so the Irish had to go sober on St Paddy’s day for 67 years. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.

Top 5 Irish Contributions to the World

#1 – St Patrick’s Day

Celebrated on March 17th annually, St Patrick’s day is one huge party that goes on all around the world. It’s a celebration of all things Irish and remembers the death St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

Parades and parties take place in many countries including Great Britain, Canada, the USA, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Montserrat and of course Ireland.

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World’s Oldest Woman is 130 Years Old

A Georgian television station says it has located the world’s oldest woman. The station says that documents show that Antisa Khvichava was born in 1880, making her 130 years old – the oldest living person by almost two decades.

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath? (WFOTD)

How long can you hold your breath? Well, the average person can hold their breath for around 1 minute, however there is one man who defies human lung capacity, and that is David Merlini.

David Merlini, 31, is an escape artist from Budapest who has broken several World Records for holding his breath while underwater. For his latest World Record, Merlini held his breath for 21 minutes and 29 seconds underwater at the starting line of the Sakhir Circuit at the 2009 Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix.

So how can you hold your breath for longer? Well it all comes down to health and practice. A slower heart rate consumes less oxygen, a healthy body uses oxygen more efficiently and practice can increase your lung capacity. All of these combined can help increase how long you can hold your breath for, just in case you ever needed to do such a thing. I’m feeling breathless just writing about this.

Stuntman Smashes Motorcycle Jump Record – Twice!

American, Seth Enslow has broken the world record for the longest motorcycle jump, and if that wasn’t good enough, he then went and broke the record again after the media missed the first one.

Seth was due to attempt the stunt at 9:30am near Australia’s Sydney Harbour, but instead he took off at 8:45am, and landed an incredible 175ft (53.34m) jump on his Harley-Davidson XR1200. However, only around a third of the media were in attendance at this early stage, so he was forced to do it again, and this time he went even further – an unbelievable 183.7ft (56m) to smash the previous record, which had stood for 11 years, by more than 25 feet.

New World’s Shorted Man Contender

An 18-year-old is heading to Europe to get his name in the Guinness Book of Records after claiming that he is the world’s smallest man.

Khagendra Thapa Magar, who is only 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall, left his homeland of Nepal on Sunday, bound for Italy to campaign for the record. Once in Italy, his father, Rup Bahadur Thapa, will decide on their next destination.

The current record is held by China’s He Pingping, who is a relatively large 29 inches (73 centimeters) tall. Second’s not that bad is it, Pingping?

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World’s Smallest Mother to Give Birth For the Third Time

The world’s smallest mother is about to give birth for the third time, despite warnings she is risking her life.

Stacey Herald who is just 2ft 4ins tall, from Dry Ridge, Kentucky, has already defied doctors to have two healthy babies, and her third is due in the next four weeks.

But despite all the obstacles, Mrs Herald and her husband, who is 5ft 9ins, and a trainee priest, say they want even more children.

The couple met in 2000 while working for a supermarket in their home town and were desperate for a family after marrying in 2004.
But doctors warned Mrs Herald a baby would grow so large inside her tiny body it would eventually crush her organs.

Eight months later, the couple were thrilled when they discovered Mrs Herald was pregnant and decided to go ahead even though family and doctors begged them to reconsider.

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Man With The Strongest Fingers In The World

Fu Bingli, a kung fu master from China, officially has the strongest fingers in the world.

Bingli, who can stand upside down supporting himself on just one index finger, scooped the Guinness world record on Monday, for completing 12 press ups on just one finger of his right hand.

His amazing finger strength has come from 32 years of training.

“I’ve been training since I was seven years old and my index finger has as much strength in it as most people’s entire body,” said Fu.

Impressive as that is, there’s only one true test of finger strength – “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war” … or not.

World’s Tallest Cat

Take a look at this F1 Savannah, which has claimed the world record for the tallest of her species.

18 month old Scarlett’s Magic measures 43.43 centimetres (17.1 inches) from shoulder to toe, and she’s now also awaiting the result on a second nomination as the longest (tip of the nose to tip of the tail) domestic cat.

According to Scarlett’s Magic owner, Kim Draper, Savannahs are becoming increasingly popular in California due to their unique appearance and learning abilities.

“They are active animals, they like to play, they like to be near their owners and family,” says Kim.

“Savannahs are for people who want a really unique pet and this is as close to a wild cat as you can get in the state of California.”

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The World’s Smallest Man Makes a Wish For His 18th Birthday

Khagendra Thapa Magar, who is 2ft tall and has just turned 18 has wished for two things: to be officially recognised by the Guiness World Records and to find a wife.

The teenager is a full head and shoulders shorter than He Pingping of China, who at 2ft 5in is the current holder of the world’s smallest man title. He is now waiting for official recognition from Guinness World Records.

His other wish is to find a wife of a similar stature to marry.

“When I am officially recognised as the smallest man in the world I expect to get lots of proposals.”

I’m sure you will Khagendra, and I’d love to come to the wedding. Is it wrong of me to be imagining a doll house church? How cute! Seriously though, I hope it goes to plan for you Mr Magar. It’s not all about size now, is it?

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World Record Pumpkin Weighs 1,725 Pounds

It’s coming up to Halloween, and that means pumpkins, however there’s one pumpkin that puts all others to shame – it weighs 1,725 pounds!

The gigantic pumpkin was grown by Christy Harp – a math teacher from Ohio. Mrs Harp and her husband Nick, grow pumpkins on their family farm, each year engaging in friendly competition.

“Last year he beat me by 200 pounds. This year I beat him by 400 pounds,” she said. “Very good year! My pumpkin, my side of the patch! We separate the patch and never step foot on the other side!”

At one point in August, Mrs Harp said, her prize-winning pumpkin was growing 33 pounds per day.

The previous record holding pumpkin was a mere 1,689-pound specimen grown in 2007 by Joe Jutras of North Scituate, RI.

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World’s Largest Paintbrush

Chinese artist He Wenjun decided to make some very, very big art – and to do that, he built the biggest paintbrush in the world.

The brush, which is 12ft long and weighs 115lbs, was used to create traditional calligraphy in a special exhibition in Nanchong, southern China.

The artist says he built the brush himself using hair from the tails of 300 horses – and claims it can soak up enough ink to add more than 100lbs to the brush’s weight.

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World’s Largest Bread and Butter Pudding

Save some space for dessert guys, because the world’s largest bread and butter pudding has just been baked, and it’s huge!

The pudding was created to celebrate British Food Fortnight and involved seven chefs, 1,000 slices of bread, 70 apples and 56 whole eggs. It measures 7ft by 5ft!

The World’s Tallest Horse

What you see before you is (unofficially) the tallest horse in the world. Poe the Clydesdale has been measured by his owner, Shereen Thompson, at 20.2 hands (80.8 inches), and now she wants the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm it.

It is believed that Poe, who is 10-years-old and lives on a farm in a farm in Tupperville, Ontario, will beat the previous record of Remington, from Princeton in Texas who measures a mere 80 inches.

Poe weighs 3000lb (1.5 tons), stands 10 feet tall with head raised, and consumes two bales of hay, 10lb of grain and 75 gallons of water each day.

The huge Clydesdale used to work as a dray horse in London, Ontario, pulling a cart filled with crates of beer. Now Miss Thompson displays the equine giant to amazed onlookers.
She said: “We take him to fairs across Lambton County.

“He is extremely popular, but his size always means people keep a cautious distance from him – although they shoudn’t, as he is a real puppy.

“But he does sometime forget his strength and drags me along if he wants to play or go chasing something that has caught his attention.”

World’s Longest Basketball Shot

‘Dude Perfect’ is a team of college guys making perfect basketball shots. In their latest video, they make the world’s longest basketball shot from the third deck of Kyle Field, Texas, but is it real or is it fake?

Alfredo from Asswass.com, has kindly made a poll for you to vote and decide. What do you think?

Vote here!

Thanks Alfredo.

World’s Biggest Burger Weighs in at 185 Pounds

The world’s biggest burger has been unveiled, which weighs in at 185 pounds.

Whilst the bun, which takes 8 hours to make, is being prepared, the burger is baked for 15 hours before it is topped with cheese, lettuce and tomato and wheeled out into the restaurant on a trolley.

Mallie’s Sports Grill and Bar in Southgate, Michigan, USA, are selling the enormous meal for $499.

Restaurant owner Steve Mallie said: ”Being in the Guinness World Records book is the greatest accomplishment we’ve ever done.

”I’ve worked my entire life to build this restaurant and being able to have the notoriety of Guinness makes it just that bit more rewarding.”

Now it’s just a question of who’s going to eat it, and pay $499 for the privilege? And we wonder why we are one of the most obese nations on earth. I’ve got to say though, it does look good, doesn’t it? Any takers?

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Cheetah Sets 100m World Record

An 8-year-old Cincinnati Zoo cheetah has set a world speed record for land mammals by running the 100 meters in 6.13 seconds.

Sarah, the cheetah, set the record on her second attempt at the zoo’s Regional Cheetah Breeding Facility in Clermont County. In her first try she ran 100 meters in 6.16 seconds, which still beat the previous record of 6.19 seconds.

Sarah the cheetah makes Usain Bolt’s 9.58 second world track record look like a walk in the park.

Pi To 2.5 Trillion Decimals – New World Record!

Who likes pie? No, not that kind of pie, the constant pi. Well, researchers at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, certainly do. They have smashed the world record for pi to the most number of decimal places, by more than doubling the previous record to 2.5 trillion decimals.

“The T2K Tsukuba System is a 640-computer cluster with a processing speed of 95 trillion floating-point operations per second. The T2K calculated a total of 2,576,980,377,524 decimal places in 73 hours 36 minutes, which is a small fraction of the 600 hours taken by the previous record holders—Hitachi and the University of Tokyo—who calculated only 1.2 trillion places.”

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World’s Largest Custard Pie Fight

253 people who threw 648 custard pies, in Essex, UK, have set a new world record for the largest custard pie fight!

It only took minutes for the pies, which were filled with 200 litres of custard, to be thrown at the event which saw a Jewish youth group achieve the new record.

Organizers said they started off with 650 pies but two got eaten.

The previous record of 120 people was accomplished in Los Angeles, California in 2008.

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Evolta Toy Goes Into World Record Books

“The little fellow in the video here is called Evoia and is powered by two Panasonic EVOLTA AA alkaline batteries. We like to think of him as a modern version of the Energizer bunny. And his claim to fame is that he entered the Guinness Book of World Records as “the longest distance covered by a battery-operated remote-controlled model car.” That’s right, the little guy kept pedaling non-stop, following an infrared beam from a lead car for 5.6 laps – 23.726 km or 14.82 miles – around the 4.2 km Le Mans race circuit for 24 hours.”

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