Are you the best at something? Everyone wants to be the “best” at something from time to time. Perhaps the ultimate sign of being the best at something is holding the world record for a specific feat.
Most children LOVE looking through the Guinness Book of World Records. And, if we’re honest, so do most adults!
Why not? Who doesn’t enjoy reading about world records like the Most Steps Walked Down By a Dog Facing Forward Balancing a Glass Of Water or the Heaviest Weight Lifted By a Tongue?
Can anyone set a world record? If so, how do you go about it? Is there a method to the madness? As it turns out, there is.
Anyone can break or set a world record. No matter how old you are, where you’re from or what language you speak, you, too, can be a Guinness World Record holder.
You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete or the next Albert Einstein. Whether you’re an expert spoon balancer or a master chainsaw juggler, the Guinness World Records company treats all claims with respect and professionalism.
All you need is a goal and the determination to achieve it. Not everyone who breaks or sets a record will be featured in the Guinness World Records books, television shows or website, though.
The Guinness World Records database contains more than 30,000 record categories. Only about 3,000 of those are featured on the Guinness World Records website, and only about 4,000 world records are published in the Guinness World Records books each year.
If you want to set or break a world record, you’ll need to get in touch with the Guinness World Records people. Be patient, though. They receive more than 50,000 inquiries each year from potential record-breakers!
Before you register and apply, you’ll first want to check out the Guinness World Records application checklist. The Guinness World Records company will not accept certain types of records, so be sure to check out its list of dos and don’ts before you take the next step.
If you think you have a potentially record-breaking idea, then contact the Guinness World Records company for more information. Good luck on your endeavor, and let us know if you set or break a world record!
(16 votes, avg. 4.56 out of 5) 
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This is going to be so much fun! Thank you for sharing this with us. I am a school librarian and have shared the news with all of our teachers. I love this site!
Thanks SO MUCH for leaving us this GREAT comment today and for letting us know how much you like Wonderopolis, Maureen! We also want to say THANK YOU for encouraging others to visit! You’re an AWESOME Wonder Friend!
Happy B-Day. Sorry about the late happy birthday. I love looking at the Wonders of the day. I just wonder how come we only have 5 senses. Can you please answer my wonder?
Hey, Tman! A Wonder about the five senses is a GREAT idea! Thank you for suggesting it for a future Wonder of the Day®! Here is a past Wonder about ONE of the five senses…TASTE! http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-are-lemons-sour/
I really love this website! Lots of my students get on it in their free time instead of computer games, and I have also shared this with teachers!
Thank you so much for letting us know how much you like Wonderopolis, Ashlyn, and also for encouraging others to visit! Have a GREAT day!
Wow! I’ve always been wanting to break a world record. Of what you ask? To drink the most lemon juice in a set amount of time! (I know weird…no, not weird…LIMITED EDITION!)
Your Wonder Friend-Jonah
We think that sounds like a really cool record to try to break, Jonah! It sounds like it might be a pretty tart and sour adventure, too! Thanks so much for visiting Wonderopolis today!
Man, I hope I will one day set a world record! Thanks for helping me to get to the websites to help me fulfill that dream!
THANKS!
You bet, Nick! You’ll have to keep us updated on which World Record you attempt to break! We’d love to hear all about your adventure!
That is very interesting! I’ve always wondered how people get world records! I have another wonder also, How did Steve Jobs Become the Owner of Apple? And how did he come up with the idea at such a young age?
Hi, E.N! Those are great questions about Mr. Jobs! It is very sad that he died yesterday…he was one of the GREAT WONDERers of our time! Here is a visual timeline we found that might help answer some of your questions: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/08/24/steve.jobs.timeline/index.html.
We also found a cool link about the Apple “Classic” Macintosh Personal Computer: http://historyexplorer.si.edu/artifacts/resource.asp?id=240.
Thanks so much for your comment today!
THANK YOU, Wonderopolis! My class and I just read and count for 17 VOTES!!!
Woo, hoo! That is SO GREAT to hear, Autumn! A big THANK YOU to you and your classmates for helping us try to break the World Record today!
Thanks, I am going to try and break the world record for most time in a headstand.
P.S. You should do a wonder on Steve Jobs because he died of pancreatic cancer yesterday.
Thanks for your suggestion of a Wonder of the Day® that honors Steve Jobs, David! We think that is a GREAT idea! Also, please keep us posted on your attempt to break a World Record…we believe in you!
Thank you for your Wonderful Wonderopolis. My class opens each morning with your site. We participated in the LLama Llama Red Pajama Reading for the world record. My students love learning through your site.
Mrs. Hajash
First/Second Grades
COTI Community Christian
We are SO EXCITED to hear that your students love learning in Wonderopolis, Mrs. Hajash! Thank you so much for encouraging them to visit each day, and also for helping us attempt today’s World Record! It was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?
Thank you for explaining what setting a world record means! We read Llama Llama Red Pajama today! We are excited to help break a record! We read it online so hopefully we will help break TWO world records. Thank you!
That is AWESOME, The Beach (Mrs. Guerin’s 2nd Grade Class)! We were very excited about helping break a record, too! Thank you for visiting Wonderopolis today and leaving us such a WONDERful comment today!
Thanks for that WONDERful video, I thought I could do a record @ Disney World called “have fun the longest @ cars land”. Thank you for another great wonder.
Thank YOU for letting us know you liked the video for today’s Wonder, cherigurl555! That record at Disney World sounds like a lot of FUN!
Love the wonder! I used to always read the Guinness World Records books! I loved them! Most of those costumes bring back memories from when I was really little and I loved super heroes!
There are SO MANY Wonder Friends who love those Guinness World Records books, Colin! You are in GREAT company! Thanks for sharing how the costumes in today’s Wonder video made you think about when you were younger!
I wanted to add this to my original comment, but i forgot. How about you set a record called “World Longest Wonderopolis Wonder” ha, ha.
That would be a really fun record to set, wouldn’t it, Colin? Thanks so much for suggesting it!
Hello, Wonderopolis!
I really LOVE your website. I like how you have a wonder of the day. I was wondering why we have stars in space? How many colors are there? How many languages are there? I hope that you can answer these questions. Thanks for the WONDERFUL questions every day.
Sincerly,
Rylie
Hi there, Rylie! Those are some really awesome questions! Thanks for sharing your ideas for future Wonders of the Day®! We think it’s great that you enjoy visiting Wonderopolis!
Wonderopolis, thank you for showing me that video of wonder #111. The baby in that video was cute. That was also funny when the baby made her sour face.
We’re so glad that you liked the video for Wonder #111, Tman! Did you learn a lot about why lemons are sour?
I think my teacher, Miss Shoemaker, told you about me and my classmates wondering something about hail with storms or something like that. Well, I was wondering if it were you without a video, how would you give me the details?
Hi, Tman! We search high and low for the best videos to go along with each Wonder of the Day®. The video is an important part of each Wonder, because it helps our Wonder Friends “see” something that relates to that Wonder. Thanks so much for commenting today!
I’m going to set a record for most cartwheels.
That sounds like SO MUCH fun, soccer101! We bet you are GREAT at cartwheels!
I have some questions for you.
Why do we celebrate Halloween?
What’s your favorite wonder?
How do you do questions on Wonderopolis?
Do you have a cat?
Do you have any brothers or sister?
Well I have one sister and two brothers.
I’m in Mrs. Phillp’s 2nd grade class.
Those are some WONDERful questions, Allison! Thank you VERY much for taking the time to think of them and let us know what you’re WONDERing about! We think your ideas would make great future Wonders of the Day. We can answer some of them for you now, though!
We love ALL of the Wonders of the Day, because we love to learn! It is hard to pick one favorite! There are many cool people who work here in Wonderopolis. Some of us have siblings and pets, and some don’t. We have many, many Wonder Friends, though…and you’re one of them!
Did you know that kids like YOU help us come up with the questions that turn into Wonders of the Day? Did you also know that you can tell us what you’re wondering any time you like? It’s super easy! Just click on the “nominate” link at the top of every page in Wonderopolis and fill in the boxes! We can’t wait to hear what other awesome things you WONDER about!
Hi!! I love this Wonder!! I tried to break a world record before. I didn’t, but I almost did. It was to chew bubblegum for the longest time.
WOW! That must have been a LONG time chewing gum, Maria! We are proud of you for giving it your best and trying your hardest! Let us know if you try it again…we want to cheer you on!
This has always been a wonder to me, how to set a record. Thanks!
We’re glad you learned something new about a topic you have WONDERed about before, Wonder Friend!
My brother got a really high pogo stick record. It was 3200. It took a long time, but it was cool. The real record is 198,000. And it took 19 hours!
WOW! You must be really proud of your brother, David! We are, too! 3,200 bounces on a pogo stick is quite an accomplishment!
I have read and bought all of her llama books to read to my family!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We love Anna Dewdney’s books too, Zoey! They are awesome and super fun to read! We think it is WONDERful that you share learning and reading with your whole family! Way to go, Wonder Friend!
I love llamas!!!!!!
We think that’s AWESOME, Rebecca! Thanks so much for adding something special to this Wonder of the Day® with your comment!
Wow! That’s insane! How did they get aaaaall of those people to participate? How did they get the Guinness Associate to come? Thank you so much for another amazing Wonder!
Hi, Journey! We thought we might be getting some awesome comments like this from Mrs. Nichol’s class today! Thank you for sharing yours with us! It was a cool video to watch, wasn’t it? We know that you guys watched another record-setting video today about water skiers, too!
THIS IS AMAZING. I THINK LA SHOULD TRIED TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS.
We agree, Cameron! Maybe you and your classmates could try to plan a world record event like the one in the video? We think you guys are super smart and full of WONDER…we believe you could do it!
I thought that was really interesting. I would like to know what super heroes did people dress up as and how many.
Hello, Zev! We know we saw lots of Batmen, Wonder Women and Supermen in the crowd! There were 1,016 super heroes in that video that day…that’s a SUPER world record!
I would like to know how much horse power the boat had and how fast it was going.
Those are AWESOME questions, Dylan! We’ll have to do a bit more WONDERing about them! Thanks so much for stopping by Wonderopolis today!
Thank you for informing me about world records. Now I know that people don’t need to be professionals in order to set a world record. Even the most smallest things count.
You’re RIGHT about that, Ingrid! We hope you and your classmates decide to try to set some world records! We think that would be so much FUN!
Thank you so much for this info! I have always wanted to know how to set a World Record. You are a great website wonderopolis! Keep posting!
We’ll keep posting if you’ll keep visiting, OK, Nicholas? We really appreciate the nice things you said about your visit to Wonderopolis today! You ROCK!
Thank you for letting us learn something that we did not know! That was a lot of heroes. But, how did they gather all of those people?
Hello, Shota! They probably organized the event weeks or even months in advance, and asked for help from the local television stations and newspapers to spread the word so a lot of people would come out that day! We think it would have been a lot of FUN to be a super hero for the day AND help set a world record!
How did they get so many people to dress up?
That’s a SUPER question, Kassidy! We think when people heard about the event and the attempt to break a world record, they decided they wanted to be a part of something special, so they told all of their friends and family! It was quite a turnout, wasn’t it?
That was a lot of super heroes. Who was that lady?
There were a lot of cool people in the video, Maeve, but if it’s the lady we think you are talking about…she was just one of the AWESOME people who dressed up for the event and wanted to help break the record!
Wow, I didn’t realize how many people are willing to dress up in super hero tights! Where did this take place?
Great question, Tucker! We’re pretty sure the event in the video for this Wonder took place at Dartmouth College in 2009. We did a bit more WONDERing, though, and found that the record was BROKEN in 2010 by people at the premier of a movie! You can read about it here on the Guinness World Records website: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-5000/most-people-dressed-as-superheroes/. Cool, huh?
I am still wondering about it.
I have one question: Do all the names of superheroes are in Guinness Book of World Records??
That’s a really great question, Amoolya! On the Guinness World Record website, the record itself only says “Most People Dressed as Superheroes.” Did you know that the record in the video for this Wonder has already been broken? It’s true! You can read about the new record here: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-5000/most-people-dressed-as-superheroes/.
That is so cool but how?