Убийство одного из создателей Книги рекордов Гиннесса: политические взгляды братьев МакУиртеров

Twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter, the eventual co-founders of the Guinness World Records, were born on this day in 1925. The two followed very similar life paths, with both entering the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, serving aboard minesweepers, and becoming sports journalists. In 1951, they founded an agency centered on providing information on sports to encyclopedias, newspapers, and the like. They got connected to the managing director of the Guinness Brewery through an athlete who worked there. Executives found their voluminous-yet-specific knowledge entertaining, and agreed to back an effort that became the Guinness Book of Records. The brothers became public celebrities in the U.K. in the emerging television industry, largely due to their memorization of the whole record book. But it wasn’t just pop culture celebrity that made the men famous — it was their politics, too. The McWhirters were both conservative activists, and both ran unsuccessfully for parliamentary seats as members of the Conservative Party. Ross, in particular, was outspoken on the issues around Irish separatism, advocating that Irish people be made to register with local police in Britain and requiring them to provide signed photographs when renting lodging. In what would be a fatal decision, he offered a large reward for tips on the perpetrator of several bombings across England. Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary organization seeking to end British rule across Ireland, assassinated him in 1975. The same year, Norris co-founded the National Association for Freedom, which went on to challenge the labor union movement, nuclear disarmament advocates, and European integration. He retired from his record-keeping work in 1985. He died in 2004; his funeral was attended by many British notables, including former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.