July 5
GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH DAY
Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey’s circus, the Greatest Show on Earth, was the brainchild of a man who is said to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” P.T. Barnum was born on this day in 1810 in Bethel, Connecticut.
His first ‘pull the wool over their eyes’ act happened in 1830, when he had people believing that an elderly black woman, Joice Heth, was George Washington’s childhood nurse. The gullible public supported him successfully for over three decades as owner of the P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome.
The museum housed several improbable attractions including the Fiji Mermaid (a fishtailed doll with a dried monkey head & torso). P.T. did have some legitimacy. He displayed Jumbo, the world’s largest elephant, and General Tom Thumb, the world’s smallest man, the first set of Siamese twins, and the famous soprano Jenny Lind. He even arranged a successful tour for her.
Most of what Barnum had to offer would be considered the side show of contemporary circuses. Merging with Mr. Bailey and later, the Ringling Brothers in 1907, P.T. Barnum left us the lasting legacy of the circus extravaganza, housing true attractions along with the fake.
The most successful and outrageous showman of the times, Phineas Taylor Barnum was still a man of his word. After all, was there ever a greater show than the Greatest Show on Earth?
The cotton candy, the clowns, the daring young man on the flying trapeze, the parade of elephants -- we were ready to be suckered.
As the public became more aware of inhumanity toward animals, questions arose as to whether having animals in a circus was appropriate.In 2015, a decision was made to gradually transition elephants away from performing in the circus. As a result of this awareness and decision, the Greatest Show on Earth began to see losses in ticket sales. The change in popularity of the circus was dramatic.
And so it was that the final performance of the iconic 146-year-old Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus held its last performance on May 21, 2017 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
There go the clowns!
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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