Quest for the True North

The world according to a traveler and beach bum.

Archive for August, 2008

Aug
31

Ever wondered who the tallest man in the world is?

Filed under human interest, people, travel, trivia

It’s Robert Pershing Wadlow, from Alton, Illinois. He was 8 feet 11 inches tall when he was last measured in 1940, when he was just 22 years old. When he was nine, he was able to carry his father, who was 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 170 lbs, up the stairs of their family home.

To illustrate, this is how tall he is, and this is how short I am:

tallest man in the world, robert wadlow

That’s a life-size replica of him at the Guinness World of Records Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a tourist town I visited and fell in love with last week. (That’s for another entry, though. :)) I am half his height at about the same age!

And this is how my foot compares to his:

tallest man in the world, robert wadlow

 I wear an Asian size 5 shoes by the way, which is size 4 in the US.

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