Strange World Records: Here Are Some That Were Set In Illinois

The more cynical and sarcastic Illinois resident might respond "we've already got record-setting taxes, crime, gas prices, unemployment, and numbers of people leaving the state--are those the records you're talking about?"

To that I would say "Sorry Bill Buzzkill, I'm not talking about those things. I mean real, honest-to-goodness Guinness Book of World Records...er...records."

Believe it or not, Illinois has plenty, and many of them are kind of weird.

We've Set Some Pretty Odd World Records In The Past, Like The Amount Of People Husking Corn, Cloves Of Garlic Eaten In A Minute, Largest Square Dance, And Claps-Per-Minute--But 2022 Was A Very Big Year For Illinois' World Record Breakers

The husking corn record was set in 2012 when almost 3,500 students from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana...well, husked some corn. The record for cloves of garlic eaten in one minute was also set in 2012, when an East Dundee man pounded down 36 cloves in a minute. The square dance record was nailed down in 2011 when 800-plus kids at Yorkville Middle School had a big hoedown.

Illinois also set the world record for the tallest man back in 1940, when Alton's Robert Wadlow was measured at 8 feet 11.1 inches. Surprisingly, he went undrafted by the NBA.

2022 Might Have Been Illinois' Biggest Record-Setting Year Yet

It seems that plenty of us in Illinois had some big ambitions to set world records, and the leisure time to do it in 2022. I would've thought that the height of the pandemic would have been a better time (so many of us had too much spare time), but I guess masks are not conducive to record-breaking.

Here's a quick list of some of the records we set here in the Land of Lincoln in 2022 (big hat-tip to Patch.com):

Westmont: The record for largest fruit display was broken by Del Monte Fresh Produce and Jewel-Osco in Westmont on June 8th, using 211,000 bananas.

Geneseo: On March 12, 2022, Dalton Meyer set the record for most hand-claps in one minute at 1,140.

Woodstock: October 29th, 2022, "Sonny" Molina threw 509 lanyards around his neck, which set a new record for...yep...lanyards around someone's neck.

Chicago: August 15th, 2022, Brenden Myers decided to crack (that's how you make them light up) 58 glowsticks in one minute, and set a new world record.

Dekalb: On March 29th, 2022, students at Northern Illinois University created the world's largest paper snowflake, which measured 13.58 meters. Since we're all Americans here, I've converted that to feet for us: 44 feet, 6.6 inches.
Click here for more about Illinois' world record holders.