Today’s History: The Guinness Book, which recorded the world’s strangest records, came out for the first time

Today is Guinness Book’s 66th birthday. Often you must have read in the news that the name of such and such person was entered in the Guinness Book. Have you ever wondered who created this Guinness Book? Why is it created? And what is its history?

In today’s history, we will tell you about the Guinness Book only because on this day in 1955, the Guinness Book was published for the first time.

The story of the Guinness Book begins from the 1950s. Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery Company in Ireland, was hunting birds with his friends. Just then a flock of birds passed by very fast in front of them. Hughes and his companions wondered, what are these birds that fly so fast? Everyone started giving different answers, but the problem was that there was no way to know whose answer was correct. Hughes and his friends also looked in the books but found no information.

Then Hughes got the idea to make a book containing all the facts. In 1954, Hughes shared this idea with two twin brothers – Norris and Ross. Both of them worked in a fact finding agency in London. Both liked this idea and work on Guinness Book started.

Norris and Ross.

An old gym on Fleet Street in London was converted into a two-room office. The first book was published on 27 August 1955. This 198-page book became so popular among the people that by December it became a bestseller in Britain. The book was launched in the US the very next year. By 1960, 5 lakh copies of the book had been sold. After this the book was published in different languages. Today the Guinness Book is published in more than 100 countries in 37 different languages.

1979: Death of Lord Mountbatten

Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India and the first Governor General after independence, was assassinated on 27 August 1979. He had gone for a holiday with his family. Then Irish militants blew up his boat with a bomb. Mountbatten and his two grandchildren, Nicholas and Paul, were killed in the attack.

Actually there is a village named Cliffone in Ireland. Mountbatten used to come every year to spend holidays with his family in this village. On 26 August, Mountbatten came here like every year and went out to catch fish in the sea. He set a net for the fish and returned to the village. The plan was that the net would remain in the sea all night and in the morning Mountbatten would take out the fish trapped in the net.

On the night of 26-27 August, some members of the Irish Republican Army planted explosives in his boat.

The next day i.e. on August 27, around 11 am, Mountbatten returned to the sea again to collect the fish trapped in the net. The boat was in the sea when there was a loud bang at 11:46 am. The boat capsized and 3 people were killed in the attack. Lord Mountbatten was also among the dead.

People remove Mountbatten’s body after the accident.

The investigation of the accident started. The agencies arrested two men from the Irish Republican Army. Their names were Thomas McMahon and Francis McGirl. McMahon was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Francis was acquitted for lack of evidence.

1907: Birth of Sir Don George Bradman

Today is the birthday of Donald George Bradman, who is called the king of the cricket world. He was born on 27 August 1908 in Australia. There are some records of his cricket career, which no one has been able to break till date.

Bradman started his international career in 1928 at the age of 20. He scored 18 runs in the first innings and only 1 run in the second innings. England won this match by 675 runs. Bradman’s team was all out for 66 runs.

Sachin Tendulkar with George Bradman.

Bradman’s batting average in Test cricket is 99.94. No other batsman is even close to this figure. Bradman was playing the last Test of his career in 1948. If he had scored 4 runs in this innings, his batting average would have reached 100, but he was out for 0 on the second ball.

Don Bradman has 12 double centuries in Test cricket. No one has been able to break his record till date. Along with this, Bradman also holds the record for the most (309 runs) in a day in Test cricket.

The day of August 27 is remembered in history because of other important events.

2008: Barack Obama was nominated as the presidential candidate from the National Democratic Party.

2003: Mars came closest to Earth after about 60,000 years. During this time the distance between Mars and Earth was 5.57 million kilometers.

1870: Shashipda Banerjee founded the first labor organization of India, Shramjeevi Mazdoor Sangh.

1859: Dorabji Tata, the great industrialist of the country, was born. He was the one who laid the foundation of Tata Steel.