Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.
In Ancient Rome the circus was a building for the exhibition of horse and chariot races, equestrian shows, staged battles, displays featuring trained exotic animals, jugglers and acrobats and other amusements. The circus of Rome is thought to have been influenced by the Egyptians and Greeks where chariot racing and the exhibition of exotic animals were popular events. The Roman circus consisted of tiers of seats running parallel with the sides of the course, and forming a crescent round one of the ends. The lower seats were reserved for persons of rank; there were also various state boxes, eg. for the giver of the games and his friends. In Ancient Rome the circus was the only public spectacle at which men and women were not separated. The first circus in Rome was the Circus Maximus, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills. Next in importance to the Circus Maximus in Rome was the Circus Flaminius, the Circus Neronis, from the notoriety which it obtained through the Circensian pleasures of Nero. A fourth, the Circus of Maxentius, was constructed by Maxentius; the ruins of this circus have enabled archaeologists to reconstruct the Roman circus.
Source: Wikipedia
Mabel Stark (real name Mary Haynie) (d. April 21, 1968) was the world’s premier tiger trainer of the 1920s. Born in Kentucky, a single child, Stark led an isolated and difficult childhood. At the age of 13, both her parents died leaving her an orphan. Choosing to work with tigers, it has been surmised that the solitary Stark preferred the company of one of the few solitary creatures in nature. There she met her new companion Rajah who would become her trademark tamed tiger. She was approached by, and joined the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, though in 1925 they announced they were discarding the large cat portion of their travelling circus and terminated her employment, instead introducing Clyde Beatty as their stand-in tamer for the occasional act. The following year, working for a much smaller circus, Stark was mauled by unfed tigers - an event some claimed was an attempt at suicide on her part since she'd previously displayed her desire to die at the claws of tigers; she spent the next two years in hospital recovering from the event.
Source: Wikipedia
Freaks is a 1932 horror film about sideshow performers, directed by Tod Browning. The movie was adapted from the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks", rather than using costumes and makeup. Director Browning had been a member of a traveling circus in his early years, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. He intended to portray the classic moral of how outer beauty does not necessarily equate to inner beauty. In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers to obtain his large inheritance. Reaction to this film was so intense that Browning had trouble finding work afterwards, and this in effect brought his career to an early close. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years. In 1994 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry's archive of cinematic treasures.
Source: Wikipedia
The greatest distance ever walked on stilts is 3008 miles (4841 kilometres), from Los Angeles, California to Bowen, Kentucky by Joe Bowen from 20 February to 26 July 1980. in 1891 Sylvain Dornon stilt-walked from Paris, France to Moscow, Russia in 50 stages, covering 1,839 miles (2960 kilometres). Although Bowen’s distance was greater, Dornon walked at a much higher speed.
Source: Guinness World Records
Devil sticks are made up of three pieces - the baton and two control sticks - but it will often be called a "pair of sticks". Manipulation of devil sticks is a form of gyroscopic juggling, or equilibristics and is generally considered to be one of the 'circus arts'. Sometimes called "devil-sticking" other terms often used are: "twirling", "sticking" and "stick juggling".
Source: Wikipedia
Entrance of the Gladiators or Entry of the Gladiators is a military march composed in 1897 by the Czech composer Julius Fučík. Written for the calliope, the march has since become indelibly linked to clowns and the circus, where it became known as "Thunder and Blazes". Although the tune is widely recognized, its original name and composer are relatively obscure. It is often referred to merely as "the circus music", "the clown music", or the like.
Source: Wikipedia - listen to the music
Other circus music includes "El Caballero", "Quality Plus", "Sunnyland Waltzes", "The Storming of El Caney", "Pahjamah", "Bull Trombone", "Big Time Boogie", "Royal Bridesmaid March", "The Baby Elephant Walk", "Liberty Bell March", "Java", and "Pageant of Progress".
Dumbo is the cruel nickname of Jumbo Jr., a semi-anthropomorphic circus elephant who starred in the1941 animated feature film of the same name produced by Walt Disney, and based upon a children's book of the same name by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Perl. Dumbo is ridiculed for his big ears, but it turns out that he is capable of flying by using them as wings. His only friend is the mouse Timothy, parodying the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants.
Source: Wikipedia
Clown cupcakes
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The following are both (an amusing use of a word or phrase which has several meanings or which sounds like another word):
Somebody was running a flea circus, but a dog came and stole the show.
A circus lion won't eat clowns because they taste funny.
Source: http://punoftheday.com/
Plays set in a circus include the 1896 musical The Circus Girl by Lionel Monckton, Polly of the Circus written in 1907 by Margaret Mayo, He Who Gets Slapped written by Russian Leonid Andreyev 1916 and later adapted into on of the first circus films, Caravan written in 1932 by Carl Zuckmayer, the revue Big Top written by Herbert Farjeon in 1942, Top of the Ladder written by Tyrone Gutheris in 1950, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off written by Anthony Newley in 1961, and Barnum with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics and book by Mark Bramble.
Source: Wikipedia
CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool. (Ambrose Bierce, from The Devil’s Dictionary)
To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kind of scary. I've wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad. (Jack Handy)
Source: thinkexist.com
The tallest stilts ever mastered measured 40 feet, 6.5 inches (12.35 metres) from ground to ankle. They were used by Edy Wolf (‘Steady Eddy’) to walk a distance of 27 steps without touching his safety handrail wires (25 steps are deemed to constitute ‘mastery’) at Yokohama Dreamland Park in Japan on 09 March 1986. the stilts were made of aluminium and weighed 55 pounds (24.95 kilograms) each.
Source: Guinness World Records
He who does not regularly put on clean socks will never get used to circus life. (Chinese)
Source: Creative Proverbs
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