BROADCASTS.com

b"Happy New Year! Our first episode of 2024 recalls Today In History in 1842 - the day P.T. Barnum opened his \\u2018American Museum\\u2019 in New York, replete with a flea circus, \\u2018Siamese\\u2019 twins, and a \\u2018mermaid\\u2019 skeleton.\\nThe \\u2018museum\\u2019 merged authentic specimens with audacious hoaxes, blurring the line between reality and fiction, exploiting many of its star performers, and bewitching the public. It followed on from the \\u2018Greatest Showman\\u2019s earlier triumph: exhibiting an elderly enslaved woman, Joyce Heth, who claimed to be 161 years old and George Washington's nurse.\\xa0\\nIn this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider how Barnum\\u2019s dubious morality squared with his desire to pursue respectability; discover what happened to his captive whales when the building caught fire; and reveal which exhibit Barnum brought before Queen Victoria\\u2026\\nFurther Reading:\\xa0\\n\\u2022 \\u2018Circus sensation: PT Barnum's greatest wheezes\\u2019 (History Extra, 2017): https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/circus-sensation-pt-barnums-greatest-wheezes/\\n\\u2022 \\u2018150 Years Ago, a Fire in P.T. Barnum's Museum Boiled Two Whales Alive\\u2019 (Smithsonian Magazine, 2015): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pt-barnums-bizarre-museum-burned-ground-1865-180955955/\\n\\u2022 \\u2018The Dark Side of P.T. Barnum\\u2019 (BuzzFeed, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vnlpj4vIcU\\nLove the show? Join \\U0001f334CLUB RETROSPECTORS \\U0001f334 to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode every SUNDAY!\\nPlus, get weekly bonus bits, unlock over 70 bits of extra content and support our independent podcast.\\nJoin now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!\\nWe'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/Retrospectors\\nThe Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.\\nTheme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.\\nCopyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2023.\\n\\n Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices"