On August 27, 1955, the first edition of “The Guinness Book of
Records” was published in Great Britain; it quickly proved to
be a hit. Now known as the “Guinness World Records” book,
the annual publication features a wide range of feats related
to humans and animals.

The inspiration for the record book can be traced to Sir Hugh
Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.

Compiled by sports journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter

The very first Guinness Book of World Records.

Sir Hugh Eyre Campbell Beaver
(4 May 1890 – 16 January 1967)

CAMILLE BOHANNON

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, one of the best-
selling novels of all time and the basis for a blockbuster
1939 movie, was published on June 30, 1936.

In 1926, Mitchell was forced to quit her job as a reporter
at the Atlanta Journal to recover from a series of physical
injuries. With too much time on her hands, Mitchell soon
grew restless. Working on a Remington typewriter, a gift
from her second husband, John R. Marsh, in their cramped 
one-bedroom apartment, Mitchell began telling the story
of an Atlanta belle named Pansy O’Hara.

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell
(November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)

Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and
the Dead, was published on May 4, 1948. The book is critically
acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to
come out of World War II.

Norman Kingsley Mailer (1923 – 20007)

A 1843 first edition of the classic book "A Christmas Carol"
by Charles Dickens.

Fox News) – "A Christmas Carol," a globally celebrated timeless
tale of heartwarming human redemption crafted as a haunting
holiday ghost story, was published in London on this day in
history, Dec. 19, 1843. 

Except for the biblical narrative of the birth of Christ itself, "A
Christmas Carol" may be the world’s most well-known and
most frequently retold tale of the holiday.

English author Dickens, 31 years old at the time, had recently
gained literary celebrity following the release of "Sketches by
Boz," "The Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist."

"’A Christmas Carol’ was written over a few short weeks to
ensure its publication before Christmas 1843, but its message
has stood the test of time," notes the Charles Dickens Museum
of London. 

Charles John Huffam Dickens
( 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)