It is true that many did not know much about him (especially those born between the mid 19th century and the present day) and many who did know him or knew about him are now very old or already dead, one thing remains unchanged, and that is the fact that Robert Wadlow remains the greatest man in recorded history to walk the earth.
Although he died at a younger age of twenty-two, testimonies from Upper Alton – the area where he was born, grew up and went to school – said that Robert was a very good and kind person. Here are all the facts about the greatest man who ever lived. his height, shoe size and cause of death.
Organic and early life
Rob was born in Alton, Illinois on the 22nd day of February 1918 to Harold Franklin and Addie May Wadlow as Robert Pershing Wadlow. He is the eldest of his parents’ five children. Wadlow’s siblings are Eugene, Helen, Betty Jean and Harold Jr. His youngest and last surviving sibling, Harold Jr., died in 2000.
“Alton Giant,” as he was later addressed, weighed 8 pounds, 7 ounces at birth, which was normal for a young boy, but in no time his parents began to notice his unusual growth.
At six months he weighed 14 kg, twice the weight of an average six-month-old boy. He weighed 18 kg when he started walking and was taller than his father by the time he was eight. It was taller than any of his classmates his elementary school had to make it a special desk. At the age of five, he was 5ft 4in and weighed 105lbs (48kg) and was wearing clothes fit for an older teenager.
His parents were concerned about his unusual growth. He sought medical attention at Barnes Hospital a few weeks before his twelfth birthday. It was then that they learned that his growth was not normal, but was due to a condition that was causing his pituitary gland to increase and abnormally high levels of growth hormone
In 1936, Wadlow began a celebrity after touring with the Ringling Brothers Circus. In 1938 he joined the International Shoe Company for a promotional tour and in return the company took care of his shoes for free.
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What was the great Robert Wadlow like? – His height, shoe size, cause of death
Having said that, being tall wasn’t that easy for Rob. The difficulty of not escaping or hiding from or in the crowd, the stares and questions, his size soon affected him as he needed leg braces to walk and on suffered from an illness called hypoesthesia.
In July 1940, Wadlow attended a festival in the Manistee National Forest where he sustained an ankle injury caused by an ill-fitting brace. The blister became inflamed and caused a high fever. Doctors treated him to the best of their ability, but his case worsened due to another health condition he suffered – an autoimmune disease.
On July 15, 1940, just eleven days after developing the blister, Robert Wadlow died in his sleep, he was only twenty-two years old.
A month before his death, Doctor Cyril MacBryde and CM Charles of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri measured Robert Wadlow’s height at 2.72 m (8 ft 11.1 in). He beat John Rogan, who was the tallest man at the time, to become the tallest man ever recorded in history to date.
At his death, Robert’s coffin was 10 feet 9 inches (3.28 m) long, weighed 1000 pounds equal to 450 kg, and was carried by 18 pallbearers. His remains were buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Upper Alton, Madison County, Illinois. The Illinois giant, as he was also known, not only made history as the tallest man in the world, but also holds the world record for the tallest feet. He was wearing 37 AA size shoes, which is 3/4 the length of a newspaper page.