The official origin story for the Guinness Book of World Records, the annual book that catalogs all of human achievement, is that it was used to settle an argument over whether the golden plover or the red grouse is the fastest game bird in Europe. (It's the plover). One of the people arguing, Sir Hugh Beaver, the Managing Director of the Guinness Brewery, noted that the answer was hard to find in reference books. So he started one to settle these kinds of trivial arguments and the Guinness Book of World Records was born in 1955.