culture
This record-keeping franchise began in the 1950s not as entertainment but as a way to settle pub arguments over trivia.
The real answer is a beer brewery: Guinness Brewery's managing director commissioned the first Guinness World Records book in 1955, after failing to settle a pub argument over Europe's fastest game bird, creating a reference book meant to resolve exactly these bar disputes.
A newspaper publisher and radio broadcaster were not behind the original book, though the franchise later expanded well beyond print into television and other media as its popularity grew.
What began as a marketing tool to settle bar bets grew into one of the best-selling copyrighted book series in history, covering everything from natural wonders to bizarre human feats.
culture
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