Young-Seok Park (South Korea) reached the North Pole on foot on 30 April 2005, thereby becoming the first person to achieving the explorers’ grand slam. This involves climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents (the ‘seven summits’), the 14 peaks over 8,000 m (26,246 ft), and reaching the North and South poles on foot. His quest began when he summited Mt Everest on 16 May 1993.

The South Pole was first reached at 11 a.m. on 14 December 1911 by a Norwegian party of five men led by Captain Roald Amundsen (Norway, 1872-1928), after a 53-day march with dog sledges from the Bay of Whales. He reached the Bay of  Whales in the vessel Fram.

The first Major League Soccer (MLS) player to record back-to-back three-goal games is Eddie Johnson (USA) playing for the Kansas City Wizards (USA) against the New England Revolution (USA) on 26 May 2007 and against the Red Bulls (USA) on 2 June 2007.

The first player to score on a penalty shot in the Stanley Cup finals is Chris Pronger (Canada) of the Edmonton Oilers (Canada), beating goaltender Cam Ward (Canada) of the Carolina Hurricanes (USA) in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals on 5 June 2006. It was the ninth penalty shot attempt in Stanley Cup finals history.

On 28 october 2007, Tomaz Humar (Slovenia) became the first person to solo Annapurna l. Humar chose to climb a new route along the right side of the south face in pure “alpine” style (meaning that he carried all his equipment and food with him, as opposed to “expedition” style, in which the climber benefits from porters and fixed lines.

The first person to walk on skis to both Poles solo and unsupported is Marek Kaminski (Poland) who completed reached the North Pole from Ward Hunt Island on 23 May 1995 (a journey of 880 km or 546 miles in 72 days), and to the South Pole from Berkner Island on 27 December 1995, a distance of 1,400 km (870 miles) in 53 days. NB: Kaminski has an acute accent on the ‘n’.

Released in Japan on 2 December 2006 and in the USA the following week, Elebits was the first physics-based puzzle game released for the Nintendo Wii console. The game, which sees players manipulating the Wii Remote to uncover and capture small creatures, was released in Europe and Australia in May 2007 under the title Eledees. It was Konami’s first game release for the Wii. Featured in Guinness World Records Gamer”s Edition 2010

The first ever pictures from the surface of the Moon were taken by the Soviet robotic lander Luna 9. Launched on 31 January 1966, the small probe landed on 3 Feb and transmitted data until 7 Feb. DID YOU KNOW? Some of the Soviet scientists and engineers wanted to dedicate the mission to Sergei Korolyev, a pioneer of the Soviet space program who had recently died. But the Soviet authorities refused as his work was still a state secret!

The first game to allow players to control one of Spidey’s deadly foes was Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage, published for the SNES and Mega Drive/Genesis in 1994. In the game, Spider-Man teams up with Venom to stop Carnage, and the game allowed players to choose which character they played as, enabling them to control Venom for the first time. Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition 2009.

On 29 November 1976, an unrestrained German shepherd on board a Grand Canyon Air Piper 32-300 interfered with the controls, causing the plane to crash. ACCIDENT DETAILS Date: November 29, 1976 Time: 14:20 Location: Grand Canyon, Arizona Operator: Grand Canyon Air – Air Taxi Flight #: 32-40443 Route: Grand Canyon, AZ – Denver, CO AC Type: Piper PA-32-300 Registration: N4125R cn / ln: ? Aboard: 2 (passengers:1 crew:1) Fatalities: 2 (passengers:1 crew:1) Ground: 0 Summary: The aircraft crashed while on final approach. An unrestrained German Continue reading →