World's unlikeliest bestseller: fifty years ago a brewer's bet spawned a compelling compendium of feats, stunts and trivia.(Guinness Book of World Records)

Publication: Smithsonian

Publication Date: 01-AUG-05

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Record books note that the first man to break the four-minute mile was England's Roger Bannister. The same books list the current world record in the mile as 3:43.13 (Hicham El Guerrouj, July 7, 1999). Yet no world-class miler has ever faced the hurdle that Ashrita Furman confronted last summer at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

"It's a very tough record, even though it's a silly event," Furman says on a warm August morning as passengers hurry through the concourse of JFK's Terminal 4. Furman, a 49-year-old health food store manager from Queens, is about to attempt his own world-record mile. The time to beat (29 minutes) seems like a snail's pace, except for one minor detail. For the entire mile Furman must push an orange ... with his nose.

At first, Furman, who has set dozens of other world records, including Most Jumping Jacks (27,000 in 1979; 33,000 in 1982) and Longest Time Yodeling (27 hours), had no interest in the event. "But it was broken a couple of times," he says, "and is now down to 29 minutes. So it's a challenge."

The Orange Nose Push does not begin with a starting gun. Furman merely sets an orange--hard and green for better rolling--on the terminal's tiled floor, kneels over it, and with a great "oomph!" shoves it with his sizable snout. The race is on. The orange rolls 30 feet. Furman jogs after it, crouches again, shoves. Passengers smile warily. Then a guard halts cross traffic. "Stand back!" he warns. "This guy's doing a Guinness record." And suddenly everyone understands. Guinness, a name that used to stand only for frothy dark beer, is now known the world over for zany world records.

This year the Guinness book celebrates its 50th anniversary. Since 1955, the company's exacting scribes have chronicled the earth's extremes: Tallest Building (Taipei Financial Building, Taiwan). Largest Atoll (Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands). Driest Place (Chile's Atacama Desert). Heaviest Human (Jon Brower, Minnoch, U.S.A., 1,399 pounds). Most Venomous Mollusk (the blue-ringed octopus). Now it also sanctions some of the world's silliest stunts. Most Clothespins Clipped on...

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