1

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s triple career

Image: E R

Arnold Schwarzenegger lifted his way to bodybuilding fame, then jumped into blockbuster movies, and later into California politics. Each chapter looked completely different from the last, yet he tackled them with the same drive. Few Americans can say they succeeded in three major worlds.

2

Ronald Reagan’s journey from film to the White House

Image: Nathan DeFiesta

Long before he sat in the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan was a rising actor in Hollywood. His path from movie sets to politics took time, but he carried his communication skills with him. By the time he reached the presidency, he was already a familiar face to millions.

3

Robert De Niro’s taste for fine dining

Image: Jakub Dziubak

Robert De Niro made his name in gritty films, yet he had a soft spot for world-class sushi. His partnership with chef Nobu Matsuhisa created a restaurant brand recognized worldwide. The chain brought Japanese fusion to a huge audience and showed that De Niro’s instincts go far beyond Hollywood.

4

Serena Williams is sewing her own path

Image: Aleksandr Galichkin

Serena Williams is known for dominating tennis, but she also made a name for herself in fashion. Her line on HSN featured modern, easy-to-wear pieces that made it to New York Fashion Week. With guidance from industry legends, Serena proved she could design clothes with the same confidence she brings to the court.

5

George Clooney’s smooth move into spirits

Image: Max Böhme

George Clooney and his friend Rande Gerber loved tequila so much that they created their own. What started as a private passion soon turned into Casamigos , a top-shelf brand with awards, celebrity fans, and plenty of buzz. The duo went from movie sets to tasting rooms without missing a beat.

6

Magic Johnson’s winning streak off the court

Image: Adeolu Eletu

After lighting up the NBA, Magic Johnson built a powerhouse company focused on investing in underserved communities. His deals stretched from movie theaters to restaurants to major teams. His business success soon rivaled his days on the court, turning him into one of America’s most admired entrepreneurs.

7

Kate Hudson turns activewear into a powerhouse

Image: Lauren

Kate Hudson co-founded Fabletics and quickly tapped into a growing fitness fashion market. The brand became the fastest-growing label under its parent company, TechStyle Fashion Group, and expanded from online sales into plans for dozens of physical stores. Even with challenges surrounding its parent company, Fabletics kept gathering new fans.

8

Will Ferrell builds a comedy hub

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Will Ferrell helped launch Funny or Die , a comedy site filled with sketches, celebrity appearances, and user videos. It became a big name in online humor and produced shows and specials that fans still talk about. Even through bumps in the road, the company stayed influential in the comedy world.

9

Martha Stewart reinvents herself

Image: Ella Jardim

Before becoming the queen of homemaking, Martha Stewart modeled professionally and worked as a stockbroker. She later blended her love of cooking, decorating, and organization into a full lifestyle brand. That leap turned her into one of the most recognizable names in American media.

10

Kevin Costner tackles ocean cleanup

Image: OCG Saving The Ocean

Kevin Costner’s big career twist came after an oil spill caught his attention. He invested in technology that could separate oil from water and pushed the idea forward for years. When the Gulf of Mexico spill happened, BP bought dozens of its machines to help with the cleanup. His invention pulled in millions and showed a surprising side of the movie star.

1

"Buffalo Bill" Cody

Image: Illinois State University, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If we had to name the most famous cowboy in history , Buffalo Bill Cody would probably be a top contender. Throughout his lifetime, Cody greatly contributed to shaping the image we have of the American West.

Born in Iowa in 1846, he earned his nickname while working for the Union Pacific Railway, where railroad workers were amazed by his hunting skills. But history had bigger plans in store for Cody, and he would soon become an actor , traveling throughout the eastern United States performing plays based on stories of the Wild West for more than 30 years.

Eventually, poor business management and a certain change in popular interests led Buffalo Bill to ruin and he retired from show business just two months before his death in 1917. He was, however, mourned by millions of people who considered him a hero.

2

John Henry "Doc" Holliday

Image: Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz

John Henry "Doc" Holliday was born in 1851 in Griffin, Georgia, into a wealthy family. He earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree in Philadelphia but was shortly thereafter diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised to live in the drier, hotter climate of the West.

In Dallas, Texas, he pursued his trade as a dentist but also discovered saloons and whiskey. Soon, realizing that gambling could be much more lucrative than dentistry, he began his professional gambling career.

The rest of his life was spent among crooks, gunfights, and jailmates in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. At only 36 years old, his lungs could not keep up with his gunslinging way of life and he finally met his death in 1887 in a hotel bed in Colorado. It is said that his last words were, "This is funny."

3

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

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The lives of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid became legendary pretty quickly. As early as 1903, their exploits inspired the first modern film —Edwin S. Porter's _The Great Train Robbery_— and since then, their adventures have not ceased to be portrayed by popular culture. In a way, they symbolize the definitive end of the romanticized Western era at the hands of 20th-century industrialization and urbanization.

Both cowboys were members of a gang known as "The Wild Bunch," which earned them a reputation as bank and train robbers. According to lore, after several years of crime and run-ins with the law, the bandits managed to escape to Latin America. Eventually, they were caught and killed in Bolivia in 1908. The fact that their graves were never found helped fuel the myth that they had, in fact, returned to the United States and lived in anonymity for many more years.

4

Jesse James

Image: Steve

Jesse James's life is one of the most emblematic of the Wild West. His criminal career began after his involvement with pro-Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. Along with the Younger brothers, he created a gang with which they robbed banks, trains, stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas and from Tennessee to California.

It is believed that throughout the years they netted more than a quarter of a million dollars. Despite the gory nature of their heists and murders, the gang often had public sympathy.

Jesse's death is as controversial as his life. At only 34 years old, he was shot in the back by one of his gang partners, who hoped to obtain a state reward in exchange for his betrayal. The public was not happy with the government conspiring to assassinate a citizen, no matter how criminal, and the matter became a scandal, resulting in Jesse James's rise to mythical status.

5

Annie Oakley

Image: International Film Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From an early age, Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses, better known as Annie Oakley, took up hunting to help support her family. At the age of fifteen, she won a competition against the famous marksman Frank Butler, to whom she later married. Together, they appeared in several exhibitions across the country and, in 1885, joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Annie was able to open the edge of a letter, shatter glass balls thrown in the air, and hit dimes held between her husband's fingers or apples placed in her poodle's mouth by shooting from 30 paces away. Her life was so rich and fascinating that she was the inspiration for several movies and plays.

6

Billy the Kid

Image: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

According to legend, Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, killed at least 21 people during his career as a notorious outlaw in New Mexico. However, he cemented his place in the pantheon of frontier legends not so much for his murders as for his personality and incredible marksmanship skills.

Born in the late 1850s in the Irish slums of New York City, McCarty had to reinvent himself as a gunslinger after the death of his mother when he was just a teenager. His life and the events surrounding his death at the hands of legendary lawman Pat Garrett were immortalized in numerous films, books, and songs. In fact, Billy the Kid holds the record as the most portrayed individual in cinematic history.

7

Lucille Mulhall

Image: Melissa Walsh

By 1900, split riding skirts allowed women to compete in rodeos without shocking Victorian-era audiences. But the truth is that women have been participating in exhibitions even in the early days of the Old West.

Lucille Mulhall is considered America's first legendary cowgirl. Born in 1885, Lucille grew up on her family's ranch in Oklahoma, where she acquired her incredible cattle-roping skills. She began performing in shows as a teenager and, throughout her career, competed in many rodeos, setting a few roping world records.

8

Belle Starr

Image: Pixabay

Perhaps the most famous female gunslinger in the history of the West was Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr. Born in Missouri in 1848, Belle had a fairly well-to-do childhood and was a bright student. However, when her family moved to Texas after the Civil War, the young girl stumbled upon the James-Younger gang. After falling in love with Cole Younger, she became a member of the gang.

That love affair didn't last long, but a few others followed, which led her to live outside the law for the rest of her life. Her alleged riding and gun skills increased her fame throughout the country, turning her into a legend.

9

Wyatt Earp

Image: National Archives at College Park, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Wyatt Earp belonged to a large family whose members were famous for being gunfighters, gamblers, bison hunters, miners, and lawmen. While all were notorious Wild West characters, it was Wyatt's exploits that have gone down in history. His life is testimony to the ambiguity that prevailed at a time when there was no distinction between upholding the law and transgressing it.

After a long life traveling the American West as a deputy sheriff, bounty hunter, and saloon owner, in 1905 Wyatt settled permanently in Los Angeles, California. He became a film consultant in Hollywood, befriending producers, directors, and actors. It is even said that John Wayne took Earp’s stories as inspiration for some of the tough characters he portrayed on the big screen.

10

"Wild Bill" Hickok

Image: Turuncu Sakal

James Butler Hickok, better known as "Wild Bill," is a legendary folk hero thanks to the many stories that romanticized his life as a soldier, gunslinger, gambler, marshal, and actor. Over the years, his adventures have been retold numerous times in pop culture. The truth is that Hickok did more in his thirty-nine years of life than most who lived twice as long.

Since his birth in Illinois in 1837, he is said to have been involved in some of the most dramatic and, at the same time, most spectacular events in the history of the Wild West. His death, unsurprisingly, is also legendary. In 1876, while playing a game of poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, a man named Jack McCall shot him in the back of the head. The cards he was holding at the time —two pairs of Aces and black Eights— became the well-known "dead man's hand."

1

Highest vehicle mileage

Image: Max Andrey

Over 3 million miles in a Volvo bought in 1966. The registered number is 3,039,122 miles , to be precise. Irvin Gordon , from Brooklyn, New York City, broke the record in 2013 somewhere around Girdwood, a town near Anchorage, Alaska. The Guinness World Records indicate that his car’s mileage is the equivalent of 120 circumnavigations of the planet.

Gordon kept driving his car even after breaking the world record, so by the time he passed away in 2018, he’d reached 3,260,257 miles. And that wasn’t his only car, either–he had another car that Volvo gifted him after achieving one million miles on his first. Gordon sold that one after driving 450,000 miles on it.

2

Woman to win the most Grand Slam Singles

Image: Todd Trapani

Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam singles titles in the Open Era, marking over two decades of establishing herself as one of the best tennis players in history. Keep in mind that she was pregnant with her daughter, Alexis Olympia, when she won her 23rd title at the 2017 Australian Open. It was her sister, Venus Williams, whom she defeated in that final.

The athlete from Compton, California retired in 2022 after awing the world with an outstanding career. She won over 73 individual tournaments in her life, earning numerous world-class distinctions. For example, she is also the only person in history to have won career Golden Slams (the four Grand Slams plus an Olympic Gold Medal) both in singles and doubles tournaments.

3

Most Olympic Gold Medals won

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No other Olympian athlete has been more decorated than legendary swimmer Michael Phelps . He retired in 2016 after an incredible career of breaking speed records and competing against the world’s best swimmers. Some consider "the Baltimore Bullet " one of the greatest athletes of all time. Spanning from the 2004 Athens Olympics to the 2016 Rio Olympics, Phelps earned 28 medals, 23 of which were gold.

Funnily enough, "The Flying Fish" also holds a record in a completely unrelated sport: golf . He enjoys the sport in his free time, and before retiring from swimming, he implied that he might consider taking it up professionally. His odds aren’t bad: In 2012, he set the record for the longest televised putt in history (159 feet).

4

Oldest woman to fly in space

Image: Pixabay

For 23 years, this title had been held by astronaut John Glenn, who had returned to space at age 77 aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery. But Wally Funk made history in 2021 when she embarked on a rocket from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. She was 82 .

Funk had passed NASA’s rigorous astronaut training program for women, known as "Mercury 13," back in the ’60s and went on to lead an outstanding career as an American aviator following the program’s cancellation. Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft took her on a suborbital flight, fulfilling her long-awaited dream. For a few months only, she was the oldest person to have flown in space, until Canadian William Shatner did it too—he was 90 years old.

5

Most prolific record-breaker

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In 1979, Ashrita Furman, from Brooklyn, New York, set out on an odd quest: to break as many world records as he possibly could. In doing so, he also earned the Guinness World Record for the most world records set by a single individual. As of today, he has broken around 700, with 200 still standing.

Some of the eccentric challenges in which he left his mark included pushing an orange with his nose for a mile and playing 434 hopscotch games in 24 hours. Why, though? Furman explained that his motivation relies on a desire for self-transcendence , and his philosophy that the mind can achieve anything it sets itself to. A strange coincidence: Furman was born exactly four days after the first Guinness Book of World Records was published.

6

Longest number counted aloud

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In 2007, it occurred to Jeremy Harper that he could film himself counting out loud from the number one to one million . So he did. It’s difficult to grasp the immensity of this feat until you learn that it took him 89 days. He spent 16 hours a day counting, without leaving his home, and viewers could stream live video of him counting.

You can watch the recording online of him pronouncing the final numbers and celebrating by doing a chicken dance . Through this feat, Harper, from Birmingham, Alabama, raised over $10,000 for his chosen charity, Push America, and was inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

7

Best-selling musical album in history

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In the early ‘80s, Michael Jackson set out to create an album where "every song was a killer," and he did not miss his mark. Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, with over 70 million copies sold worldwide. The nine-track album featured a star-studded lineup, including Paul McCartney, the first artist ever to be featured on a Michael Jackson album.

Quincy Jones was the producer of this record and had a relentless pursuit of perfection. Some of the songs, like "Billie Jean," had to be recorded over 30 times before the artists were satisfied. At the 1984 Grammy Awards, the album won a record-breaking eight awards in a single night. Santana’s Supernatural surpassed that record by winning nine awards in 1999.

8

Female Entertainer with the Longest TV Career

Image: Anna Tarazevich

The beloved Sue Ann from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose from The Golden Girls were just a few of the iconic characters that Betty White gifted us. Betty White made her television debut in 1939 and remained active for over 80 years, giving her the longest career of any female television entertainer.

Apart from that, she was the first woman to produce a sitcom when the series Life with Elizabeth premiered in 1953, a show in which she also starred. Here’s another record Betty White broke: in 2010, after a Facebook campaign requested she host Saturday Night Live , she became the oldest person ever to do so, at the age of 88.

9

Crossing the U.S. in a wheelchair

Image: Marcus Aurelius

Matt Eddy crossed the country in his motorized wheelchair , starting in Lynn Beach, Massachusetts, and ending in Long Beach, California. No one had ever done this before. A survivor of a muscular dystrophy disease, Eddy, from Boston, controlled his chair with just two fingers.

The feat took him 126 days, that is, four months. He rode for five hours a day, sometimes enduring extreme desert temperatures that affected the functioning of his chair. Though this incredible journey was inscribed as an official record in 2010, Eddy had already done it before. Only two years prior, in 2008, he had successfully completed a first run of what he called the " Journey of a Million Smiles ."

10

Most surfers on a single surfboard

Image: Juan Samudio

On the first day of summer in 2015, 66 people hopped onto a super-scaled surfboard and rode one wave together at Huntington Beach, California. The massive orange board measured 42 feet long and 11 feet wide and had to be towed into the sea. They chose this beach to make history because of its 100-year-long love affair with surfing.

Thousands of spectators watched from the beach and the pier as the surfers rode the wave to shore, where it was immediately proclaimed an official Guinness World Record. They had surpassed the achievement of 47 surfers who had ridden on the same board in Queensland, Australia in 2005.