Back in the show biz years, Robert’s favorite stop was the Sequoia national park in California. Seeing just how massive the trees were, it was “the first time he ever felt small”.

This is my hometown! And my grandma went to school with him. We have a statue of him. And ppl always go to visit it. Its great you made a video about him. I heard he was the nicest person ever.

My wife met 7' 7" Manute Bol when he was in college playing for the University of Bridgeport. She was so astounded at his size that all she could say was "Are you Manute Bol?" He smiled at her and said "Mother, I am seven feet seven inches tall. Who else could I be?" And Wadlow was over a foot taller than Bol.

I want to take a moment to remember my friend Ryan, he died from Giantism as a Teenager, and was well over seven feet tall. He was a beautiful and kind human being, and I will always be grateful for what he did for me when I was young. RIP Ryan.

From my understanding he was about the kindest fellow you could meet (which is after all why they called him the Gentle Giant). It's a shame he passed at only 22, but considering the fact he kept growing he probably would not have lived into even middle age due to the vast problems that can come with gigantism, esp. to the extreme he dealt with (heart problems, aortic aneurysms, etc.). Rest in peace, Mr. Wadlow.

He was from my home town! I love taking people to the memorial statue that is set up in town. Standing beside the life sized statue is always awe inspiring. Thank you for sharing our “Gentle Giant”.

There's a museum in Amsterdam (Ripley's Believe it or not) where you can stand by the life-sized mannequin of Robert Wadrow and it's freaking surreal and intimidating. You never quite get the actual feeling of his enormous height from those pictures alone, unless you stand right next to him. You're like a mouse facing an elephant. Absolutely mind blowing experience. It's crazy how a human being can even get that huge!

When she was young, my grandmother, who recently passed away at age 95, actually met Robert Pershing Wadlow. They were both from Illinois, and she was a few years younger than he was. She described him as very friendly, but their interaction was limited to a shared smile and a brief handshake, as there was a crowd of people there.

Growing up, my grandfather always seemed like a tall man at 5'10" but, my grandparents had a picture taken with Robert when he was still younger and not at his peak height. Still, my grandfather looked so short next to him.

When I was 13 they discovered I had a tumor between the pituitary and another gland which I don't know the name in English... Either way, in December 2nd 1991 I went through surgery to remove it. I probably don't have a pituitary ever since. And I need to take a lot of hormone pills every day. I even had to take shots of growth hormone. I only see with the left 50% of my right eye because of the surgery (zero from the left eye). But I'm alive and well. This year I turn 44.

Robert is literally where the expression "gentle giant" came from

I recently found a radio interview with Wadlow that had been uploaded to KZfaq. I think it was conducted when he was 18. They discussed his life and interests, and he talked about pursuing a law degree. Even though it's only an audio recording, his massive size still comes across. His voice was possibly the deepest unaltered voice I have ever heard. Considering how microphones in the 1930s didn't capture deep/bass tones very well, it can be genuinely difficult to understand him on a first listen without captions.

He died so young. I hope he got to experience a wonderful life and I hope people were as kind to him as he had the reputation of being to others. He really was a gentle giant.

Robert was said to be kind, gentle and very shy. He often found his large size awkward and embarrassing. I think he thought of his large stature as a sort of prison and if he could, he’d have traded all the celebrity and money he had in a heartbeat just to be normal sized. It’s honestly tragic when you think about it.

I’m currently 5’11/6’ at age 15, and pretty much everyone on my mom’s side of the family is a good few inches shorter than me, so I always feel a little weird at Christmas or another event like that, but now I have to imagine what this guy felt like

I grew up in Alton, Illinois and my mother (1926 - 2019) grew up in the same neighborhood of Upper Alton as Robert Wadlow (1918 - 1940). Mom always told me that she would often see Robert in the neighborhood and that he always had time to say Hello and to chat for a bit. He was never treated as a freak in his home town and his reputation as a gentleman was well-deserved.

One of the best things about Thoughty2's videos is really twofold (in my opinion): not only is he one of the absolute funniest guys to deliver such interesting material but the respect and genuine, heartfelt attitude that is conveyed when serious situations arise always warms my heart. Thanks for reading 😉

Fascinating video. I'm only 6'8, but I already feel like I'm living in a big playground for children sometimes. Doorways, cars, houses, clothes, and theme park rides are often very difficult or impossible for me to use. I could only imagine adding another 2+ feet to that. It's amazing that Robert was so cool-headed and perseverant.

From what I've heard, he was one of the nicest people, which is why I feel so bad. He might of liked being that height, but if not, it was never his choice, and I feel like part of his life (getting his dream job of being a lawyer, maybe even getting a partner, etc) was ruined. Considering he just kept on growing, he wouldn't live to a decent age because of problems with being that tall. so his life really was just a time bomb, ticking away. RIP.

When thoughty2 is an educational channel that has fans all around the world and doesn't turn foot into meter:

Fun fact; Robert was among the few people in history to count as a "Large creature" in d&d terms, as Humanoids/Giants that are between 8 and 16ft feet tall count as large, meaning they take up a 2x2 space instead of a 1x1 that medium creatures take up. Also side note; This record is probably going to be Broken sooner or later after permanent colony's are made on Mars, which as you may or may not know has 38% the gravity earth does. The main thing stopping a 9 foot+ human on mars is space issues, which will probably be overcome in time. If Robert lived on Mars He'd weigh a much more managable 166.82 Lbs, which is far less than myself.

As some one who grew up in Alton I can say that his exsistance definitely had an effect on the community. You can go into Alton and they have a statue that’s life size and even in person and just a statue it’s unbelieveble you can also take a seat amd his custom chair. Not the real one but they made a life size statue of it as well. Check it out someday

Sadly only 22 when he died and the infection he had is pretty much treatable these days. I'm sure he never knew just how much he'd be remembered.

Glad your still making videos about 6 years ago I was in the biggest depression stage of my life and all I would watch to calm myself down was your videos. They all would softly put me to sleep for a little. And im so grateful for that. Thank you so much thoughty. You are awesome.

I went to college with a young man that was 7' 2" He said his mother was 6'6 and his dad was 6 ft 9 and his brother was over 7 ft as well. Of course, he was there on a full basketball scholarship, even though he admitted himself that he wasn't actually very good at the game. The university provided him with a custom size bed to accommodate his size, while the rest of us were in our dorms with our twin size beds lol he used to stand in my dorm and rest his head against the wall above the door frame. He was quite a nice fellow.

Robert Wadlow's life was pretty sad and he'd passed away so young. I had read that he'd suffered through pain a lot from growing so fast. He was always sore and weak. I feel so bad for him.

That was truly amazing, I have a friend who is 7 feet tall & he not really complained about, but mentioned that he did face difficulties shorter people take for granted, from flying in commercial aircraft, to fitting in normal cars & his favorite nemesis, doorways, but he had a soul of solid gold.

I'm 6'5" and I have to be careful of not hitting my head on doorways in older buildings. I had a childhood ambition to grow up to be over 7 feet tall, but having lived life at my actual height in a short person's world, I now think it's just as well that I didn't get any taller.

My neighbor's son was over six foot at 13 years old. And it was heartbreaking. The problem is that when people see a six foot male, they don't see a 13 year old boy. They see a grown man. So when that 13 year old acts like a 13 year old, people overreact. Imagine a 22 year old doodling on their desk or roughly horsing around in the hallway between class. Or dropping 13 year old attitude when being corrected. This was a SERIOUS problem in school. Mom learned to head it off at the pass when he was just 11 and already looking like an average man-height. At the start of the school year she'd insist on a meeting with his teachers and principle. She'd explain that everyone who looks at him experiences a type of optical illusion and can't convince their brains that what they're seeing is a boy. That strategy worked some, but incidents still popped up where mom would hear of her son's misbehavior then have to ask them to think. What if any other boy had done this common thing? What's the usual punishment? Why is his punishment harsher than the others? Her efforts to teach people to look past what they saw was admirable and one teacher told her that it had changed her entire perspective on her students. She learned to step back and see the total picture. To try to understand the individual and not make a snap judgement based upon physical attributes.

The comparison with Shaq was crazy!

Really cool video, as always. I just wish you'd included the different measurements in metric units as well. Keep up the good work!

I'm glad I got to hear more about this man, size has always interested me, and I am glad you mentioned Angus McCaskill because in my mind he is almost as impressive in his own way. That he grew to be 240kg at almost 8 feet tall with the broadest shoulders ever measured and apparently normal proportions yet absurd strength blows my mind. He was not just a giant but a titan.

They actually tried a “Where’s Wadlow?” But as you might guess he was pretty easy to spot 🙂✌️

Something very profound was said there: "Robert was so tall that the normal rules of life didn't apply to him." That explains why classical and quantum physics can't seem to cooperate.

What a great video, well said. A touching tribute to Robert. May he rest in peace.

My grandfather saw him (I assume in the circus) and said he could take a baseball in his hand and close his hand, you couldn't tell which hand had the baseball.

Lmao that cockroach joke was simply hilarious even the scientific name is pure comedy. I love how you can be educational but a funny bastard at the same time thoughty2.

I love how respectful you were of this gentle giant. And as always...that wink...

Thanks for being so respectful of him.

I've listened/watched a lot of stories about Paul "The Big Show" Wight. Wight also had a tumor on his pituitary gland, and was 6 foot 2 inches by the time he was 13. On The Stone Cold podcast, Wight told the story that (forgive the paraphrase) "while a typical pituitary gland produces between 1 and 5...I'm not sure what the official unit of measurement is.. miligrams? Of human growth hormone a day, mine was producing 91". Wight had the operation to remove the tumor; I don't know when, or at what age he was when he did (and dispite being billed as 7'4" in WCW and 7'2" in his early days of the (then) WWF), Wight himself has stated that he is just a bit over 7 feet tall. That just amazes me to think if 1 to 2mg is normal, and 91mg allowed Wight to grow as big as he is, it's truly scary to imagine how much growth hormone per day Robert's was producing. That poor man (barely even reached the age to qualify as a man (21 in many societies)) probably had growing pains his whole life.

Very good! My grandparents knew Robert. They had a signed photograph of them standing together. They said he was a truly nice, and humble human being.

I'm 5' 8" and the tallest human I actually knew was 6' 7" and even though it was "only" an eleven inch difference, he seemed a giant (to me...) I can't imagine someone over 2 foot taller than him !

As a (very tall) European, I am disappointed to see only imperial system being used, not the metric system. I always forget how tall I am in feet, let alone remember how many inches in a foot, etc. Please, next time, in the infographics, add metric system. Thank you! Oh, and I am 2.07 meters tall, plus half a centimeter, to be more precise. (And as a press photographer in the 90s I met Shaquille and he is monstrous in size, only moment I felt small!).

Good video. The only thing is that Robert never went to hospital. He received medical care at the Chippewa Hotel in Manistee, Michigan and died there on 15th July 1940. Essentially, the hospital came to him. What a remarkable person he was, in so many ways.

This guy is awesome. I'm writing detective books, and his historical facts and legends, that not much people talk about, really are helping me a lot with ideas.

I’m from Illinois and one of the coolest memories I have growing up was this furniture store by my house that had one of his custom built chairs on display. It was so cool to see such an interesting piece of history and see just how big it really was in person.

30 stone? I get that some people are scared of the metric system and therefore use lbs, but STONES? Really? Anybody able to tell me, how many kgs is a single stone?

Metric system please! Laughed when you mentioned stones after all that imperial shit :D

At 6'9, I cant even fathom the difficulties he faced in life. The problems are real.

I appreciate the fact that Thoughty2 treated the man with respect throughout the discussion.

There are recordings of him speaking on a radio show. He's quite good humored and intelligent, and the sadness of it kind of hits you.

As a child I was the smallest boy in my year for most of my time at school until my growth spurt hit shortly before I turned 14. At that time I was only 4'8". Over the next two and a bit years I grew 14 inches (36cm) to my adult height of 5'10". During that time I was growing an average of an inch every 2 months. In reality I didn't grow at a steady rate but rather in spurts where for about 2 months or so I'd grow very rapidly and then I'd have about 3-4 months where my body adjusted before another growth spurt. I would out grow my clothes in the space of a few months, so my mother would ask her friends for hand-me-downs from their sons or get me baggy stuff from the charity shops. One month my trousers would need turn-ups and a few months later they were at half-mast round my calves. These growth spurts put huge pressure on my body as my leg bones were growing much faster than my tendons and stretching them to breaking point. I suffered from both Osgood-Schlaters and Severs disease during this time (they aren't actually diseases but medical conditions). My doctor cheerfully told me it was very similar to being stretched on a medieval torture rack and that if the tendons snapped I'd be in plaster for 6 months, have to undergo several painful operations and be crippled for the rest of my life. Not fun. The specialist hospital consultant told me I was the most extreme case of either condition he'd seen in 25 years of practice. Both were painful. The Osgood- Schlaters made my knees throb much like if you've banged your knee cap really hard, except it lasted all day. The Severs was a lot worse. On a bad day it felt like someone had shoved a red hot poker into my achilles every time I flexed my foot or put my heel down. Some days I couldn't even stand as it was too painful. That lasted for over two years and massively restricted my life during that time. I can only imagine the stresses put on Roberts body and suspect he was also in a lot of discomfort for much of his life, poor guy. N.B. I also underwent another growth spurt which lasted about 3 years in my early 20s. This time in bulk, rather than height. I went from a slender 9 stone (126 lbs) to 12.5 stone (175 lbs), all bone and muscle (not fat) with my shoulders widening noticeably and my chest deepening. Fortunately this time the growth spurt wasn't painful or life constricting, although again I kept out growing my wardrobe. On the plus side girls started to pay a bit more attention.😀

My Dad met Wadlow in Missouri. Said he was nice but in pain. Interestingly I'm studying real giants right now. Timely! Thanks Thoughty2! Lvya

Thanks for this respectful video. I grew up a few miles north of Alton, and this has always been both a sad and proud story for the area. If anyone is visiting greater St. Louis for any reason I recommend checking out the statue in Alton. It is truly something!!

Heya, greetings from Finland and from a long time fan of your content here. Thanks for the work you have done so far. I would ask you to please remember us poor SI metric system users even if we are considered minority by some. Keep up with the good enjoyable content! :)

I worked in an ER about 12 yrs ago and I walked in one of the rooms to tell the patient sitting patiently on the bed that he could come up to the nurses station and the doctor would discharge him...He looked normal enough sitting there but when he stood up I was looking dead in his chest and I was 5'11 at the time...this 44 yr old man was a trim 7'5"... I've never seen anyone that tall and haven't since either...

As a kid growing up in Chicago we went on a field trip to the Dr. Scholl's foot museum and they had shoes, a chair and life sized mannequin of Robert Wadlow and it was crazy. I was a fair tall kid in the 5th grade, standing around 5'6 I'm 6'2 now but to barely come to his waist was ridiculous.

Clearly he was a man who knew frustration. Imagine trying to cook with normal utensils and pans with hands like that while having to stoop over to boot! How do you even hold a toothbrush, pen or turn a door knob when you’re that huge? He must have had super large buttons, zippers and shoe laces.

When Talking Heads released a VHS compilation of their music videos they interspersed the videos with interviews of ordinary people telling stories. They called the video "Story Telling Giant" and featured Robert Wadlow on the cover, mentioning his reputation as being a very kind person.

Known about Robert my whole life having got a guiness book of wirld records when I was a kid.Thought your documentry and telling of Roberts life was very informative and complimented the person and showed all there posutive points and how amazing they were.So looking forward to more of your documentries in tge future.Very enjoyable and well done

USA viewers: wow fascinating, remarkable! Non-USA viewers: wut?

i really like that this guy was known for being nice as well

Can you imagine going to a club you really want to get in and Robert Wadlow is stood outside the entrance as a doorman telling you it's full!

The Circus never bothered Robert, he simply chose to rise above it.

I was sure this was going to be his first clickbait, but no, giant is the only way to describe that man.

I grew up near Alton, IL, I had family that knew his family. I've known of him since I was very young and have always been fascinated by his story. If you ever get the chance to visit his statue in Alton or his life-size mannequin at Ripley's museum, do so. Standing next to it is really astounding.

I think I have seen almost every footage there is of Robert , A unbelievable Giant and Gentlemen, He will never be forgotten , so sad he left us , he was so Young , RIP RW ☝🏻

I truly believe that a pretty young secretary to have an affair with is possible even if she might be afraid of his cockaroch. 😂😂😂.

Giant Macaskill was from my province, Nova Scotia! There are many local legands about his amazing strength. In his 20s , he was a fisherman and one night there was a huge storm that swamped all the fishing boats near his village. While all the other men strugled in groups with ropes and pullies to turn their boats back over, Giant Macaskill calmly walked kver to his boat, picked it up, poured out the water and sat it back down. 🤣 the story goes , the other men were seriously pissed until he offered to do the same for them lol

Growing up two towns away from Alton Illinois, I've seen the replicas of the gentle giant. Huge man, but being gentle and kind is what the Midwest is all about. Imagine the amount of gutters this man cleaned out as a teen lol

Wait, if he had the longest hands ever recorded... and the longest feet ever recorded... Boys, I need a tape measure and a time machine, this man still has one question left to answer.

I'm in Saint Louis, Missouri just across the river from Alton. A few years ago I made a delivery at a company in the area and the gentleman who signed was the tallest person I have ever met. I didn't ask him how tall he was but he was TALL!!!!! I'm six feet even, and he had to have been in the neighborhood of 2 feet taller than me. Love you vids Thoughtman, keep them coming.

I have visited the grave of Angus. That man is by far the largest natural Giant this world has seen in many centuries. He was almost 7 ft 10, without any growth disorder. He's also the world's strongest Man for the 19th century. When pressed on it, even Luis Al Cyr had to admit that Angus was probably stronger than he was. Angus did something that ultimately killed him, but it has not been replicated since. He picked up a ship's anchor that was estimated to be over one ton. He was injured when he dropped the anchor and the flanges struck him. The Guinness book of world records estimates that the ships anchor he picked up was 2,700 lb. There were also stories of him picking up 200 to 300 lb barrels under each arm and running down the street with them. Today's strong man struggle to even carry one such weight.

The world will be better when everyone would finally adopt the universal, scientifically accurate, understandable and meaningful metric system.

Excellent. I'm visiting your channel for the "first" time then I realized I've seen your videos before many years ago when you were younger haha. Glad to see your channel is growing. Good content.:)

Great video as always but please put the metric system numbers too.

Friendly reminder of the existence of metric units and the fact that they are used by more people. Including metric units in this video would be much appreciated.

I worked at Ripley's Believe It or Not in St Augustine, FL. There was a mannequin in the gift shop I worked! They had another in the museum. I took at least 3 photos of visitors with him daily! It was cute to see the children's reaction to his size.

He was always growing and died at 22, imagine if he had made it to like 30 of something, he would’ve been damn near 10 feet tall

What a video. I’ve always known about this guy but this was fascinating. You go into so much depth

I wonder how long Robert would have lived with today's medicine. The pitutary gland can easily be accessed through the nasal passages. 2 friends of mine had Cushing syndrome causing cycts removed from their pituitary glands.

man was probably always like: "hobbits are amazing creatures."

That family picture is astounding

Great vid, thanks. Just thinking that the average male height in Biblical days was about 5'5". Ringo Starr, the shortest Beatle is 5'6". When John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus he was technically correct.

I had a pituitary gland problem too (it luckily did not affect my growth) but these days they can actually access it surgically through the nose! It may be inconveniently be under a good amount of brain but it is very handily just behind a thin bit of cartilage roughly by your sinuses!

The Childe of Hale John Middleton was said to stand at 9’3 …His grave is huge and if you visit Speke Hall there’s a full size painting of him you get an idea of his height . He was enormous

12:18 man's really going to say how much he weighs in stones but not in kilos

Waldo: expert at hiding Wadlow: cannot hide

Please give us the numbers in cm and kg also!

Ever heard of Martin Van Buren Bates? Well according to history, he was the longest living human with gigantism disease, living for around 82 years. He was born in 1837 and died in 1919, which also makes him one of the oldest people to have ever lived during that time, with the average max age being around 65 years. He also had a spouse of around equal height, Anna Haining Swan. She sadly did die early, at around 44 years.

Could you imagine how many matches he'd get on Tinder

hi! I'm a very big fan of your channel for quite some years now and I have a wish.. could you please add measurements in metric in your videos? just a tiny written number on screen would go a long way. thanks, keep up the good work

i remember watching a special on him a while ago and that they had to make special shoes just for his giant feet. He also had severe issues just getting through doorways. His temperament was amazing considering the health issues he faced too.

Wish 95% of the world could watch this video and understand how tall these fellas are

It is very common to have a collection of beetles and cockroaches in Japan among the male of the species. I have a few friends in Japan, and when I find a particularly large beetle here (in Texas) I will send a picture of it to them and they always want as many pictures as possible. One even asked me if I'd ship it to him, to which I said no. Sorry mate, I'm not paying over $200 to ensure your beetle makes it to Japan. "Rare Giant Texas Beetle" would be on his plaque.

Does this mean us short guys can add the fact we live longer than tall dudes to our dating profiles?

Dear Thoughty2! Could you please add metric measurements aswell to you future contents? Love your videos! Greetings from Hungary!

Robert passed away in my hometown, we have an actual size statue of him in our shoe store, and his custom made shoes on display there as well

I was interested in Robert for years, I've always found his story incredible. Thanks for this video.

I was an RA in college and one of the students on my floor was 7’1”. He even had a custom bed put in his dorm. He was a good kid too!