Celebrating North Dakota Records for Guinness World Records Day
Nov. 9 marks Guinness World Records Day, which is a day in which people from all over the world attempt to set new records.
In honor of Guinness World Records Day, we thought it would be appropriate to look at all of the World Records that Guinness has on record that involve North Dakota.
In total, there are nine. Note that this does not include world records such as The Longest Chicken Dance (set in Mandan) as that record is held by the World Record Academy and not Guinness World Records.
The records are presented in no particular order whatsoever.
Snow Angels: Back on Feb. 17, 2007, 8,962 individuals simultaneously made snow angels on the State Capitol Grounds. It was the most amount of people to ever simultaneously make a snow angel.
First Drone Conviction: In June 2011, police questioned Rodney Brossart about the theft of six cows. His three sons took extreme exception to the police questioning and police used a drone to locate all four men on what was a very large size farm. Brossart was found to have never stolen the cows but he and his sons were charged with terrorizing or menacing a police officer. It marked the first time that a drone was used in a conviction.
First Fire Shelter: A fire shelter, according to Wikipedia, is a "safety device of last resort used by firefighters when trapped by wildfires. While such a shelter cannot withstand sustained contact with flames, it can protect a firefighter's life in a short-lived grass fire. Furthermore, it is designed to reflect radiant heat, protect against convective heat, and trap breathable air so that firefighters can survive in non-burning areas surrounded by intense fire for more than an hour."
The first such device was apparently used near present day Bismarck on Oct. 29, 1804. There was a prairie wild fire and a mother threw a Bison Hide over her son to protect him. William Clark wrote about the event in his journal.
The Shortest Feature Film: The shortest feature film is called Soldier Boy. Directed by Les Sholes in 2004, the movie made its debut in Grand Forks in March 2005. The film is just 7 seconds long and it is the story of a man and a woman who are separated during WWII.
If you can spare 7 seconds, you can watch the film beginning at the 10 second mark in the below video. SPOILER ALERT: It's a terrible movie.
Largest Wooden Baseball Bat: If you've ever been to a Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks game, you may be familiar with 'Big Bruce.' The wooden bat made from ash, is 13 feet, 5 inches. It was created in the year 2000.
Fastest Paralympic 200m Individual Swim Medley: In 2012, Jessica Long swam the 200m Individual Swim Medley in 2 minutes and 36 seconds in Bismarck.
Longest Journey by a Street Sailor: This is a record that began in Texas but ended in North Dakota. Between April and June of 2001, Robert Torline travelled from Brownsville, Texas to Maida, North Dakota on a wind power street sailor. (Essentially a large skateboard with a sail on it). The journey was 2,119 miles.
There is video of the journey though it is a bit longer than the feature film shown above.
Largest Scrap Metal Sculpture: North Dakotans know all about the Enchanted Highway. The 'Entitled Geese in Flight' sculpture is the world's largest scrap metal sculpture standing at 110 feet tall and 154 feet wide. It weighs 157,659 lbs.
Longest Piece of Siding: In 1998, a commercial building in Fargo received a continuous piece of steel siding that measured 236 feet by 9 inches. That is the largest piece of siding in the world. Guinness notes that the building was located at 2821 Fiechtner Drive so it is unclear if that building is still there. Google Street View at that address shows a building that does not have steel siding.
**All items for this story were obtained by searching "north dakota" with the quotes on the Guinness World Record website. A log in is required but making an account is free. When we searched "north dakota" without quotes, it yielded over 2,000 results because it included records with the word "north" or "dakota" but did not necessarily refer to any records specifically in North Dakota.**
Other world records that North Dakota has that are not mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records include the world's tallest dog (a real dog, not a statue), most fire trucks in a parade, the largest twist dance, the longest chicken dance, and the largest serving of chili con carne