2-378-236 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Lothrop Withington, Jr (right), a Harvard freshman, swallowing a goldfish, USA, 1935. Three days later, at Franklin and Marshall College, a young man ate three. The record was said to have been set in 1938 by Albert E Hays of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who swallowed 42 goldfish in succession.