Milestones

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The Guinness Book of Records was started in 1955 by a beer company hoping to settle pub arguments. But the true genius behind the book was NORRIS MCWHIRTER, a former athlete and sports reporter who possessed one of the world's most prodigious memories for trivia. McWhirter, who died playing tennis in Wiltshire, England, last week at the age of 78, edited the book through 1986 and established the rigorous record-screening procedures that made it an authoritative guide to natural phenomena, sports records and dubious human endeavors, such as holding 109 live bees in your mouth.

In 1981 Guinness lent its name to a TV series hosted by David Frost, which was later broadcast on India's state-owned television network. I was living in India at the time and saw how the show changed people's lives. Overnight, Guinness mania swept the country as ordinary Indians, determined to achieve immortality, grew record-busting mustaches, walked vast distances with milk bottles on their heads, ate light bulbs and wrote poems on rice grains. Among those persistent enough to make it into the book was Shridhar Chillal, who still holds the record for the longest fingernails, at a combined 6.15 meters. He told me he wanted to saw the nails off but would do so only if someone paid him $200,000. ("I haven't had a good night's sleep," he lamented, "since 1965.") When asked why they went to such extremes, their explanations were overpracticed, self-mythologizing, implausible. But the truth wasn't hard to discern. Inclusion in the Guinness book gave them prestige, hard to find in impoverished Indian towns. The book reflected a quirk in the mind of Norris McWhirter, and it created its own quirky world.
—By Anthony Spaeth

HOSPITALIZED. DIEGO MARADONA, 43, legendary soccer player who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup championship, with heart and lung problems; in Buenos Aires. Maradona, who survived a heart attack in 2000, fell ill after watching his former club play and was placed in intensive care, where his condition improved during the week. Maradona is best known for scoring two goals—one with his hand—to defeat England in 1986, but his brilliance waned due to cocaine abuse and he retired in 1997. Argentine doctors denied that his hospitalization was drug related.

DIED. RATU SIR KAMISESE MARA, 83, Fiji's first Prime Minister and a leader of the nation for three decades after its 1970 independence; in Suva. Born into a family of clan chieftains, Mara helped draft a constitution that sought to balance the rights of native Fijians and residents of Indian descent prior to the end of British rule. He served as Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992, aligning the country against communism, and was appointed to the largely ceremonial presidency in 1993, only to be forced out in 2000 when an armed gang stormed the Parliament and held the Prime Minister and Cabinet hostage for 56 days.

DIED. JAMES CANTALUPO, 60, McDonald's CEO who helped drive the company's international expansion, of an apparent heart attack; while attending a convention of the fast-food chain's worldwide franchisees; in Orlando, Florida. During his 10 years as president of McDonald's International, Cantalupo brought the Golden Arches to 70 countries. He retired in 2001 after being passed over for the CEO job, then he was coaxed back less than a year later to help boost sales that were sagging within the U.S. as consumers grew concerned about obesity and heart disease.

RELEASED. MORDECHAI VANUNU, 50, former nuclear technician who was imprisoned for 18 years, including 12 in solitary confinement, for revealing Israeli nuclear secrets to a British newspaper; in Ashkelon, Israel. The convert to Christianity, who has had severe restrictions placed on his travel, was defiant upon his release. "To all those calling me a traitor," he said. "I'm proud and happy to do what I did."

RESIGNED. KAREN JURGENSEN, 55, editor of USA Today, and HAL RITTER, 52, the paper's managing editor of news; in the wake of a report that blamed poor editorial oversight at the newspaper for failing to uncover deceptions in the work of star reporter Jack Kelley; in McLean, Virginia. Kelley, who resigned in January, was found to have fabricated parts of at least 20 stories and plagiarized at least 100 passages since 1991.

INDICTED. HIDEAKI ASADA, 41, president of Asada Nosan, a Japanese poultry producer, on charges of covering up a February outbreak of avian influenza at a company farm; in Kyoto. Prosecutors say Asada failed to warn authorities about the deaths of thousands of birds, and the farm allegedly sent some of the surviving chickens to processing plants. Asada faces up to a year in prison. His father, who was Asada Nosan's chairman, and his mother committed suicide after the outbreak was discovered.