S1E10 THE RINGLINGS
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The Greatest Show on Earth
The Greatest Show on Earth -- a slogan adopted in 1919 when The Ringling Brothers Circus combined with the Barnum & Bailey Circus to begin the last ever chapter of the historic American Circus. In a time before YouTube, or television, the circus was a seriously big deal. And as long as we have known the circus , it’s always been a family affair. The first place the world ever saw such a show, such an idea, was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Single unit European families began putting on small road shows and traveling from town to town with their unique skills. Tightrope performers, equestrians, acrobats… They lived and worked as a family. And though the Ringling Brothers came along more than a century later, they were no different. They just scaled it up a bit. Hired a few non-blood relative assets. But in the beginning, it was truly nothing but a family affair. Just 5 brothers and a crazy dream.
