Guinness Book of World Records

While trying to find out who was the world's shortest man today, I stumbled across an article on Craig Glenday, editor of the Guinness Book of World Records. In it there is a reference to the start of the book:

The book famously began in 1951 as an argument between Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery, and friends with whom he'd gone hunting in the Irish countryside. Beaver exclaimed that a bird he'd shot at and missed, the red grouse, was Europe's fastest; the others disagreed. Sir Hugh's well-stocked library could not resolve the matter, and "he realized you needed something to settle these arguments which must be raging in pubs all around Britain," says Glenday. Beaver hired the McWhirters, Norris and Ross, to be the editors and in August 1955, the first edition of Guinness Book of World Records was launched. It had a beer-proof cover and was sold to Britain's 84,000 pubs.

But who were the McWhirters? And why, in 1975, was only one of these identical twins with photoraphic memories and outspoken political beliefs, Ross, gunned down by the IRA?

But back to the shortest man. It used to be Gul Mohammed (India) who was 57cm tall but he died in 1997 aged 39. Current title holder Younis Edwan (Jordan) is 65cm tall. But there's a rising contender - Khagendra Thapamagar of Baglung (Nepal) - who at 14 can only contest the title of World's Shortest Man because he is considered to be "fully grown" at 50cm. A ruling on his claim to the title is in progress.