Stuff You Should Know - How Circus Families Work

Episode Date: July 2, 2015

Don't be confused - this one is about actual circus acts made of family members, not the controversial comic strip. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called, David Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. It's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry, which makes this the flying S-Y-S-K's. Flying Stuffians, Stafinos, ooh, Stafinis, the flying Stafinis, nice, man, boy, see, look at that. It took us what, seven seconds? Maybe even less.

To come up with the best name in the history of podcasting circus teams. Yeah, we'll go back and look at the timestamp after this publish, as you will know for sure, but I say less than seven seconds. The flying Stafinis. Yeah, good job, man. All right, I guess we can retire. We've hit it big. Yeah, we have.

You can make some money being a circus family I learned. Yeah, I have no idea about costs, so you will delight me, because I think everyone, well, not everyone, I think some people, when they go to the circus, they're like, what's that guy make for throwing knives? Oh, I have no idea what they make. It's just the impression I got from this research. Gotcha. I thought you had some hard numbers.

No, you're the stat man, remember? I know, but people don't, you know, it's rude to talk about money, so people don't share these things these days. That's why I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you the impression I had. They're always strutting around with goblets full of really expensive wine, circus family. You know. Yeah, they got, you know, every time I think we're all circused out, there comes another

topic. Well, we have yet to do how circuses themselves work. We will do that one day. So we've done all of its components. Every last one after this. Well, it does have interesting history, so we will save that then. Yeah, we will. I do want to do how circuses work, and we should also say, I don't want anybody to have the

impression that by talking about circus families, we are endorsing circuses in general. I have serious issues with some of them, but with them for the most part. Oh, like because of their treatment of animals? Yeah. But a lot of them don't use animals at all anymore. Oh, not a lot of them. Some of them don't. I have no problem with the circuses.

Yeah. Like I remember the Big Apple circus, they have a dog thing. Well, dogs. I mean, what are we going to do anyway? A horse thing, and I think that was it. And horses love to show off, so I'm okay with the Big Apple. Yeah, you wouldn't, you know, but no, no, they wouldn't show like an elephant. Right.

Right. Which is funny because apparently an elephant is equal to a family circus performer. Oh yeah, I saw that. I should say circus family performer. Family circus is totally different. Yeah, this is a little frustrating to research because I kept getting lots of circular cartoons that weren't funny. Yeah.

You don't think they're funny? Well, okay. They're not funny. I think they're charming and heartwarming. Yeah. Sure. You know, Jeff wrote on the wall. Right.

It's not funny, but it's cute. Their little hair and the nose is in the, they're cute. That I have a brief segue here initially. That reminded me, I was just at Max Funcon, the weekend retreat of Jesse Thorne and his podcasting Empire. Everybody loved you, that picture of you and Hodgman and Justin McElroy's kid. Yeah. A little baby Charlie.

Yeah. Very cute. Yeah. I think people love babies. Hodgman, who doesn't particularly like kids, was like, give me that baby. Yeah. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Hodgman likes kids that at least he likes his own kids. Yeah. Sure. So I was just there. And first of all, let me recommend the Super Ego podcast, very funny improv podcast featuring Matt Gorely and Paul F. Tompkins and Mark McConville and Jeremy Carter. You could have stopped at Paul F. Tompkins.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. But one man improv isn't like, it's not the best. He can do it. I bet he could. Yeah, he does. I've seen it.

So anyway, long story short, we were playing this game one night where we were naming comic strips and the comic strip Mark Trail came up. Oh man. Do you remember that? Well, it wasn't even trying to be funny. Well, no, it wasn't funny at all, but it wasn't even like interesting. It was literally like, you know, what a beautiful sunset today. Right.

That was it. Or tracing the trail of a hawk in the sky like through eight panels. Yeah. I thought it was refreshing in a little ways like you just make it all like through a hilarious spasm of laughter after like funky winker being or Hagar the Horrible and you needed to like chill out. I couldn't remember that. So you'd like read the Mark Trail.

Yeah. Like you'd go at it again and just laugh and laugh and beatle Bailey, which is being stitches. And then maybe you'd come down a little on Mary Worth or apartment three G. Oh, back up on Wizard of Id. Back down with Brenda Starr. Right. Yeah.

That's the way you do it. But Mark Trail, I don't want to knock it too much because I believe it like taught kids about nature and conservancy and stuff like that. But and how to follow a hawk's trail in this guy didn't belong in the comic section. But I don't know. I mean like it was a comic strip. Yeah. And the comics were like they started out or a lot of things started out as comics

like Lone Ranger comic. Oh, really? Sure. The comic strip or comic book because some have been both, you know, well, the bolster my point. Let's take comic strip. Okay. Okay.

That's great. And it might have actually started out as a radio show. Now that I think about it, hey, that went that worked out well. I was thinking, how can we kill some time here before we do circuses? That's how family circus tangent. So family circuses, when I first started circus families, when I first started researching I was like, what a weird thing to be in a circus family. And then I thought it might be weird to be in one, but not weird that there are circus

families because it makes total sense that it's the family business. Well that's how circuses largely started out. Yeah. Very familial. It was, you know, like some patriarch of a family would find out that, hey, I'm kind of good at juggling. Why don't I try doing it while I stand on the back of a moving horse? Sure.

And they go, holy cow, I'm actually doing this. And they'd say, well, let me see what happens when I toss my sons in the air instead of juggling, you know, batons. Juggle my sons. Yeah. If I set their hair on fire using some sort of safe flammable material that will burn but not burn the sun, say. Yeah, like have a flame retardant cap.

Sure. That's, yeah. All of a sudden you've got a circus family and like these people would start out by, you know, the whole family would get involved and this was a time when there were much larger families than there are today and they would form their own mini circus and travel around. And as circuses became more and more established and entrenched and divided among some very big names, they started basically freelancing for these things. Like they go on a tour or a couple of tours and be, you know, with the large circus for

a couple of years and then they go off and get on another tour or something like that. But they would form these family acts and that's how circuses originally got started. Yeah. And apparently it's just, the more you look at it, the more it makes sense. You know, they're on the road a lot. And if you want to spend time with your family, get your family in the family business because then mom and dad aren't on the road doing their equestrian act, they are bringing the kids along and teaching them and all of a sudden they're the writing Stafinos.

And they're spending time together. And it's, you know, I read a few interviews with people in circus families and apparently if you were not from a circus family, this quote from a big Apple circus guest director Steve Smith said, for those of us who didn't grow up in the circus, there's always a feeling as if we're on the outside looking in on what they call a quote, being circus. Yeah. Like if you're born into a circus family and you're in the circus, you have automatic prestige.

Yeah. You're part of a dynasty and that's being circus. Yeah. It's like real police if you're a fan of the wire. Sure. There's cops and there's real police. Yeah. But like if you were born into being police, which a lot of cops are also another family

tradition job. Yes. I don't know if little podcasters are going to come along. We're not at that point yet where like there's been a generation. Oh, no. I am. Not yet. Close.

Yeah. Maybe a little Charlie McElroy will be a podcast. Oh, maybe. And then they call, they say marrying inside the circus also makes a lot of sense because where are you going to meet people, but probably fellow performers, other circus families. So these are not towners. If you're not like, if like you and I are towners. Yeah, AKA slack, yokels.

Yeah. You know, sure. How do you look like that thing on fire and jump through it? Yeah. There's a, there's a pretty neat article on PBS called being circus life in the family business about being born into a circus family. It seems like a pretty cool life. I mean, you know, they go to school on the road and I think it's like one big family because

they say, you know, if you're in a trapeze act, you can't be mad at your dad who is catching you in the trapeze act tonight. So I think you got to like so drop you. Yeah. Well, you know, you can't go into performance, a dangerous performance like the globe of death harboring any animosity toward your siblings. So you got to work this stuff out, you know, they're, they're tight-knit people. Right.

And it seems like the custom is that once you are done performing as a member of a circus family, there's a non-performing job for you, ready and waiting in the circus elsewhere, like an administration or something like that. I thought you were going to say break a deal, face the wheel, long standing tradition in the circus. I know. Welcome to barter town. Um, face the wheel.

I watched that not too long ago. I told you, I think I watched the whole Mad Max trilogy. Oh yeah. Yeah. The quadrilogy now? Well, yeah, I think it's still trilogy plus one. Mm. Like Durham is our plus one on the Northeast tour.

Yep. The lousy folk people of Durham. Get it together, Durham. Um, all right, so you want to talk about some of these famous families, you know, you marry into it, you're born into it, and then before, you know, and they, it seems like they always have a lot of kids too. Yeah. Like seven children because you need seven to complete a pyramid.

Exactly. Is that why? Like if you think you need help, um, you know, tending to the farm, imagine having like a circus act. Yeah. That's a good point. And some circus families also kind of expand, especially once they form a troupe, they'll expand the family act to include non-family members.

Sure. Where they're, they're members of the troupe. They're not members of the family, but for, for any outsider, they're like, oh, there's like three dads here. Yeah. But they take the traditional blood oath, I think. Sure. You know, just so they fit in.

They cut themselves with an elephant tusk. That's right. Still attached to the elephant. Yeah. That's right. And then they do a trapeze act. Yeah. That's gotta hurt.

Yeah. So let's talk about the Clarks, one of the earliest, um, British circus families. Any relation to you? Probably. I mean, can't you tell? Sure. You've seen me on the high wire. I have.

You're quite skilled. Uh, yes, they, uh, the Clarks go all the way back to the very first, uh, circuses, um, because a man named Philip Astley is credited as being the inventor of the modern circus in the late 1700s. Right. And he heard about John Clark, who was a horseman. A lot of these people are horse people. Yeah.

It's a good way to start in the circus. Sure. Just be good on a horse. Exactly. Um, he, uh, John Clark was good on a horse. He caught the attention of, um, Philip Astley. And, uh, in the early 19th century, they started a circus act. Yeah, it was an aerial act at first, and, um, it seems like anytime you're good, then

the Ringling Brothers will come a call in at some point. Yeah. For sure. To snap you up. Yeah. Because they are the greatest show on earth. That's right. Um, the, the, one of the ways also to cement your family act as a dynasty, in addition

to having multiple generations that stay in the circus, um, is to create some new thrilling move that no one else has done before. Oh, yeah. Like the Clarks are credited with, um, coming up with the, uh, triple back somersault in 1909. Right. Oh, yeah. And the, the whole, the Clark family dynasty actually broke up because of World War II.

World War II, interestingly, had a really direct impact on a lot of circus families. Yeah. And the Clarks were among them. Um, so the men went off to war. I'm sure some of them died, went to return were like, I've seen too much to go back into the circus and it was up to Ernestine Clark, who was a great granddaughter of John Clark, I believe. Right.

To carry on the family business. Yes. Single-handedly. And daughter of Ernest. Her name was actually Elizabeth Laura, but she looked so much like Ernest. People called her little Ernie and, uh, she, yeah, she eventually went by Ernestine. I guess she was like, I might as well just make this a little more feminine. It's like a family circus trip.

And she did soldier on, um, you know, after World War II, like you said, uh, it's so crazy to think about these famous people going and joining the army. Well, Elvis did. Yeah. Elvis was in the army. I know he was also probably like more protected than Prince Harry is. Sure. But he was still in the army.

Sure. Famous athletes, like, can you imagine like Justin Bieber is in the army to fight in the Middle East? No, I really, really can't. Just doing his duty. A Ken off. That's an American. Just a different time.

It's just mind boggling to think about the mindset back then, you know, do you know I got my haircut recently by the guy who created the Bieber haircut? Back in the day. What? Swear. Is that why you went to him? No. I didn't find out until partway through and I was like, please don't give me a Bieber.

Please don't give me a Bieber. Was the, the sweepy in your face? Yes. Yep. Wow. Yeah. So he was Bieber stylus. Yes.

Early on. Interesting. And gave him that haircut. Isn't that cool? I guess. Man, I was like one degree from Justin Bieber. Oh, I think we all are. He knows everybody.

I don't know if you found this. I thought this was pretty amazing. The Clarks performance group early on were called the Clarkonians. I thought that was pretty good. It's weird. Yeah. It's so funny. Like for some reason, if you're a circus promoter, you're like, ah, that name's not nearly Italian

enough. Ed and Eni or an Oni or something on the end of it. Even if it doesn't work like Clarkonian. Yeah. Or as we'll hear about later, the Hajinis. Yeah. That's, that's, that's senseless. It is pretty senseless.

But you can thank circus promoters for coming up with those horrible hybrids of names. Yeah. I think there's a rich tradition in Italy, so they just, it sounded, you know, fanciful. Yeah. Um, so Ernestine carried the torch. She finally left the circus in the 1950s and had a husband that was a part-time circus performer, part-time actor, and her little girls who came. Who, Parley?

Yeah. Parley Bayer. Parley Bayer. He was the mayor in Andy Griffith. Oh, no way. And if you look up his, um, his credits, he was in everything. He like made appearances in everything. Like you would recognize him immediately.

Interesting. He's been in everything, from 3's company to the Golden Girls. He was just in everything. Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. Um, bewitched. Yeah. Did I say 3's company?

Yeah, you did. I'll say it again. Uh, so she married the famous actor, um, and then her daughters became Treppie's artists, carrying on the family tradition, and Ernestine eventually became the first daughter to follow her father into the International Circus Hall of Fame. Nice. We have a little clip here. Do you ever read the old New York Times articles?

Sometimes. The PDF ones. Oh, it's the best. The ones with 18 different, um, headlines. Yeah. Yeah. We just basically read the headline. Yeah.

This has several headlines, actually. So this is about Clark, um, Ernest Clark in New York City and Madison Square Garden. And the first headline is, Treppie's Man Noted for Twist and Air. Uh, Ernest Clark of Ringling Circus turns at right angles and leap for life. Line. Line. Broken rib brings panic. I'm sorry.

Pain. Line. Line. And then riding action during triple somersault starts sweat of agony. All right. And then in the article, it says, uh, Clark's feet is apparently in defiance of all the laws of mechanics, for he turns his body in the air and appear wet at right angles to its line of flight with no other leverage than that.

He can exert by a thrust of his shoulders. That's some journalism. It is. And then later when they're describing him, it says, Clark is a small, almost slight man, but with a large, wonderfully developed chest. With a great heart beating inside. Old New York Times articles are just the best. I would say all old newspapers, period, but, um,

New York Times, they knew what they were doing. Yeah. You could access, you can access that stuff today pretty easily. Pretty neat. You know, I looked up what, um, that line and stay in alive means about the New York Times don't make a man. Is that in the song stay in life? The New York Times don't make a man.

Oh, I never knew. That's what they were saying. Yeah. So what does that mean? It means basically at the time that if, like, if it wasn't in the New York Times, it doesn't matter. Huh. And this is about a man whose life still does matter even though it's not worthy of being

reported on in the New York Times. Who? John Travolta or the character? Yeah. I can't remember a thing. Tony, um, Menara, right? I think a Scarface. Tony Marinara.

Was it Tony? It's probably Tony. I think it was Tony. You know, so that movie was based on an article in New York magazine. Yeah. And it turned out that the guy who wrote it made the whole thing up from beginning to end. I think I heard that.

Made it up. Crazy. Yeah. But it's still worth reading. Yeah. Who cares? And especially if you know that he made it up, you're like, how did, how did anybody buy this?

It's kind of like, like on the spot reporting is just done by a handful of people. Sure. They found this guy that worked in a hardware store in Brooklyn and yeah. And then like was there like with the, it was, was able to like almost omnisciently track like the people that came into this guy's orbit. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that the editors were like, wow, you did a really good job here, not near

a fraud. Yeah. Who cares? Yeah. They should have just, when I hear things like that, I'm like, just say it's fiction from the beginning. Right. It's still interesting.

Yeah. It's like when the guy that the author wrote about his drug rehab, the, um, James Frost, cry. Yeah. That was a great book. And I remember at the time when that all came out, I was like, man, you should just call it fiction. It's a really good book.

But I thought, I followed that story and thought the same thing. Like, like why, why would you, why would you say that every word of this is accurate? Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. We will get back to, uh, circus families, believe it or not, right after this message. Hey everybody, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn?

So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lauren and Nova Scotia, who realized she could Airbnb her cozy backyard treehouse and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology.

And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. It doesn't look good, there is risk to father.

And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, sometimes if the circus family can get in front of a show promoter, they can have some sort of control over their own name, the change that comes to it. And that is the case with Robert Hobson, who left England for the U.S. in 1868 and started a circus family act.

Yeah, acrobats. A family act. That's right. Actually, he was noted for tossing his sons about like Indian rubber. I don't even know what that means. It means he was basically throwing his sons all over the place and they're just landing places. Well, no, I get that, but I don't know what Indian rubber is.

I think that they were very pliable. Okay, gotcha. So with the name change, they were originally Hobson, I'm sorry, originally Nelson, but changed their name. No, it was Hobson first. Oh, was? Oh yeah. Changed to Nelson.

Man, it gets confusing. Right. So he called themselves Professor Nelson and Sons. Right. The sons who he tossed about like Indian rubber. Right. But it's not like Nelson's no better than Hobson, it's just strange. Yeah, he changed it supposedly, allegedly, because he wanted to pay homage to a former

stage partner that I guess had died or moved on or whatever. Well, that makes sense. You can't find the person's name whoever the Nelson was, but it was an homage. Well, maybe he wanted anonymity as well. Yeah, he was probably on the run from the law. Sure. So the Nelson's became the great Nelson family because they follow that tradition of needing more people more quickly than they could reproduce.

Right. So they brought in other performers who weren't family members and they became the great Nelson family and then ultimately the flying Nelson's, which is what they became famous as, the flying Nelson's. Yeah. And here's, I thought the cool little factoid about them in the early, I'm sorry, late 1920s, granddaughter Hilda taught a lot, was hired to teach Lon Chaney, the actor, how to walk the high wire in a movie called Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

And then all of the Nelson's were in a movie called Circus Rookies in 1928. So they still continue, I think, not as the Nelson's, but they said their ancestors, some of which still perform. Yeah. They basically retired mostly by 1935. Yeah. But then, yeah, some carried on. Sure.

What about the flying Willendas? These are the ones that everybody knows. Everybody's heard of that. It's sort of, that became part of the lexicon. Yeah. The flying Willendas. Yeah. And funny enough, the flying Willendas actually got their name from a newspaper headline that

dubbed them that because four of them fell from a high wire. Yeah. And they said, oh, like they're the flying Willendas. Yeah. They said the quote was the Willendas, the Willendas fell so gracefully that it seemed as if they were flying. But I wonder, like, there were other flying Nelson's, like, was this the first one I wonder? The Willendas?

No, because the flying Nelson's were called that long before the middle of the 20th century. So I think it was a natural word to apply to a circus family. That did acrobatics. Right. They're flying. And they definitely did acrobatics, man. They were, they'd cemented their legacy for the seven-person chair pyramid. Wait for it.

On a high wire. No nets. No nets. No harnesses. Very dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that Carl Willenda, who was the patriarch at the time, died at age 73 from a fall on the high wire. Yeah.

They had a lot of tragedy. And they had the pyramid collapse in 1962. Two people died and Carl's son, Mario, was paralyzed. Carl goes on to die. They had a sister-in-law who fell to her death in 1963. And then in 1944, they were the group performing when the Hartford Circus Fire broke out. Oh, really? So their act was going on.

These tents were made if they were coated in paraffin wax at the time. Probably kerosene. To keep it from, to keep it waterproof. Right. Paraffin wax is highly flammable. So kerosene. So kerosene. And a little tent sidewall started and during their performance, a band leader spotted it.

And apparently, and they should tell everyone this, the song Stars and Stripes Forever is a warning signal to the circus performers. Oh, really? Yeah, he said start playing that and that signaled like big trouble is ahead. And 166 to 69 people died. Yeah, didn't it only have one point of entrance or exit, I think? I don't know. I know that some of the exits were blocked because they had like the ramps set up for

the lions and stuff to come through, like portals. Yeah. And so they couldn't get out that way. So you might be right. But yeah, that was one of the deadliest fires in US history. And that's a bad fire. Yeah. And there were a bunch of circus fires that were at about two or three.

I would guess if you have huge canvas tents. A lot of hay on the ground. Yeah. And they're coated in flammable material. Yeah. And everybody smoked. Sure. Big cigars.

Yeah. And then we'll just, they still don't know. There was a guy that claimed responsibility as an arsonist, but they don't think he did it. He was mentally ill and although he was an arsonist. Just not that time. So the, the willendas have become synonymous with circus tragedy. Yeah.

Absolutely. Strangely. But they also, it hasn't overshadowed their accomplishments there in the world, the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's first and only 10 person pyramid on a tightrope. Crazy. So consider this. Several of their family members died doing this and they went on to not only redo it, but to add three more seats.

Three more willendas. Yeah. That's crazy. That's a real record. And then Nick Willenda, who has been on Discovery Channel before, I believe he walked over the Grand Canyon. What channel? Discovery Channel.

Have you heard of it? Gotcha. They, I think he was the one who walked over the Grand Canyon. He definitely walked over Chicago in between two skyscrapers over a 600 foot drop. Yeah, man. That stuff is just nutty. Which is 200 meters. Crazy.

Yeah. On a, on a high wire. Without a net. You could put a net at the bottom. It's not going to do anything. How do, we talked about this a little bit recently with the movie coming out about Man on Wire, the tightrope walker between the Twin Towers. Yeah.

How does the wind not just knock them off? Well, that's what that pulls for. To extend their point of, what, balance? Point center of gravity. Yeah. I mean, I knew it helped them balance, but it just seems like the wind could be so fierce it could like, like the wind blows me over just walking down the street. I've seen it.

I frequently have to help you out. That's how you found most of your lucky pennies. Yeah. That's a good point. I hoovered them all up. All right. Are we on to the, the Hajinis? Yes.

We are the Hajinis, which is, it started out as the Hajis. Not good enough. Let's make it more Italian and add Ene to the end of Hajis. Yes. Which is what a promoter did to that lovely English surname in the late 19th century. And they have been around for a long time, 350 year ancestry of circus performers. Yeah. It's not bad.

It isn't bad. I think that's the oldest in here. The Walendas went back to the late 18th century, the 1700s. Yeah. I think the Hajinis might be the oldest one in here. This one lady I saw that was interviewed, I can't remember her name. She was a 12th generation on one side and seventh on her father's side. Man, that's serious being circus.

Yeah. So with the Hajinis, Chuck, they were, they were really good with the horse. Yep. Equestrians. Yep. They had their own, in particular Harriet, which was one of Albert Hajinis, who I guess he wasn't the founder if it went back 350 years, but an early Hajini, early 20th century Hajini or late 19th century.

This kid Harriet would somersault and like dance on the back of a moving horse, which is weird because I've seen that before. I've seen like footage from the 40s or 50s, so I wonder if I was seeing her because there's probably not that many people walking around on earth who can do backflips on a horse. That's a good point. But the really notable thing about the Hajinis is what they did in retirement. Yeah. I thought that was pretty cool.

Tom and Betty Hajini from Indiana, Peru, Indiana, not to be confused with Peru, the country. Peru, Peru. Yeah. They retired in 1956 and a businessman there said, you know, I want you to come and work with some kids and teach them like your, your craft. And that began. They were just like leave us alone. Seriously.

Retired. Yeah. And that's the welcome mat. No. We didn't put one out. Get off of property. That began what is now the Peru Amateur Circus in which kids perform like 10 performances every summer and it just sounds like a neat little program.

Yeah. And it's not that little, apparently tens of thousands of people show up for it. Yeah. A little, you know, and it's actually going on July 11th to 18th. Oh, nice. Yeah. Around, I don't know exactly when this one's going to come up, but it will be in time. So if you find yourself around Peru, Indiana, go check out the circus there, July 11th to

18th. Chuck, we've got more, don't we, up our sleeves. Yeah. More enies. And we will talk about them right after this. Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn?

So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down.

Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You remember you said, Chuckers, that a lot of these families started out as like a great equestrian family?

Sure. The cognates are probably the premier equestrian circus family around. Yes. They began in 1870, a teenager named Leopold Cognat and they were Hungarian. He did the old, like right out of a storybook, he said, I'm running away and joining the circus. Yeah, that's another way to found a circus family. Go start your own?

To run off to the circus, yeah, and start, yeah. Start having kids. Yeah. And then you won't be circus, but your kids will be circus. Yeah. It's got to start somewhere. Exactly. At some point.

And it all starts by running off to the circus. That's right. Of course, he might have married into circus. Yeah, he probably did, could have. So not only were they equestrians, and of course, when we say equestrian there, it's always bareback riding tricks almost. Yeah, but this article actually features a member of the cognates, Tina Cognat, who was competing for the U.S. in the 2012 Olympics.

Yeah, like, sure, she got out of the circus and said, let me, what's something super snobby I can go do? Is it dressage? I don't know. That's not snobby, though. It's actually beautiful and amazing. Yeah. I don't want the equestrians there.

You don't want them after you. Is that a hornet's nest? Yeah, it's a hornet's nest. They're on horses, for God's sake, you know. They can run faster than you on a horse. So like most performers, John Ringling of the Barnum and Bailey Circus caught hold of them in 1907, said you're coming to America and they performed there for a little while, but then said, you know, we're going to go back to Europe and we're going to start our own

circus. No, not just a circus. An American-style circus. And Wild West show. Yeah. It was good on them, you know. Yeah, I think it's hilarious. So they're like, oh, okay, they're going to go crazy for this in Europe.

So the equestrian part of the show was really big in Europe and then like, which was the family, the Clarks, World War II put a dent in all of Europe. So they said, well, I guess we've got to go back to America now. Yep. And then they kept performing and eventually stopped. At least they, I guess the family legacy was to create equestrian centers. Yeah. So they weren't circus performers anymore, but it's almost like this equestrian family

had a brush with circus notoriety and then. Change to that. Yeah. And then just continued on as an equestrian family. It was pretty neat. Probably make more money in equestrian circus, you know. And then Arthur Cognac, who's one of the original, who's one of the sons of the founder, Leopold, he's in the International Circus Hall of Fame.

Nice. So there you go. So they're not doing too bad. No. All right. We've got a couple more here. Do you know how to pronounce this one, T-O-G-N-I-S? I would say Tony's.

Tony's. That's what I was going to say. Tony Maranara. Yeah. That's right. They are another Italian family in circus dynasty. And the original founder, Aristide Togni, he was a student and he said, you know what, I'm done with school and I'm going to go perform in circus, open my own, have eight kids so

I can open my own circus. Yeah. I get the impression that he decided he was done with school. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he ran off to the circus. Did you have the impression whether his wife was a circus, was circus family, circus performer? I don't know.

Well, she was after they got married. They had kids and set up their own circus. And it was such a success that in 1919, the king of Italy, or the king of that part of Italy, because I don't, when was Italy unified together in a single country? Was it under Mussolini? Oh boy. I don't know. It wasn't that long ago.

Yeah. Well, King Victor Emanuel III created or said that the Circo Togni was the Circo Nazionale. Yeah. And that ran for a while. Again, a circus fire in 1951 hit the Circo Nazionale Togni. And from that point, three of the suns split apart and formed three different circus factions. Yeah. That fire spread them far and wide, I guess so.

But they are noteworthy because not only were they a circus family, they were really smart inventive engineer types and made a lot of advancements in the circus itself, like the tent. Yeah, like the big top tent, the cupola. Yeah. They came up with that. Yeah. They came up with three different designs.

The cupola in the 1940s, the oblong in the 70s, and the hugely famous round cupola quarter pole free in the 90s. And one of the other suns, too, invented the collapsible seating wagons and a metallic mesh cage that I don't know if that's the globe of death or not. No, that's the Urizes who came up with the globe of death. All right. So the metallic mesh cage he invented must have just been like, I don't know, for animals or something?

Probably. Yeah. Point is, though, they were inventors and made some money doing that stuff, like designing tents and the like. And one of the things that we haven't really kind of hit squarely on is the fact that these, if you're born into a circus family and you are raised in the circus, from what I've read, you're very rarely pressured into being a part of the family. It's more like this is your reality.

So you start doing gymnastics and acrobatics at an early age and you're surrounded by it. Yeah. And then eventually at age 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you end up being a part of the family act and then the circus at large. But it raised a question to me about that 10,000-hour myth. Is it just from practicing this stuff at an early age or is this just the result of some people who are born acrobats coming together and producing offspring that are born acrobats

themselves? I don't know. It's a great question. This is a good question. I wonder how many times it's happened that you're in a big circus family, you have like seven kids and six of them are in the circus and one of them is like I want to be a city planner. Probably not much.

No. We got one more. We do the Urizes who did come up with that globe of death in 1912. That globe, that metal globe. You ride the motorcycles in. Yeah, that was invented in 1912. Yeah. I had no idea it went back.

I was sure that this thing was probably invented in the 1960s or 70s. I was going to say 70s. Yeah. It seems like a 70s thing to invent. Totally. You know? Yeah, but it goes all the way back to 1912. That is nuts.

So the actual globe of death was a 16-foot diameter metal mesh orb. Yeah. And the idea is if you haven't seen one of these, A, just look up a video real quick. B, crawl out from under that rock you live in under. And then, see, it's when you put multiple motorcycle riders that just gun it and fly around this thing without hitting each other. Right. Ideally.

Yeah. And they would add people who are juggling fire in the center of the globe. Sure. With people riding around it. Going up to 60 miles an hour apparently. And they had, the Uriuses in particular were the first to feature female motorcycle riders. The first to feature two female motorcycle riders, because how are you going to top the first one?

Put in two. Add two. And there's one where the Jodi Urius does a neck spin. You know that thing where you just have a harness attached to the back of your head and you spin around? Yeah, until you vomit. Right. Yes.

And you have people going around her on their bikes and circles. Yeah. It's really impressive. I mean, the precision is ridiculous when you see, I mean, I've seen, I don't think it's, I mean, they're still doing this act today. I saw another family. They don't have the market cornered on the globe of death. But they invented it.

Yeah. Yeah. They invented it. They just failed the copywriter trade market, I guess. But I did see another family that was, I think they had like eight motorcycles in this thing. It was ridiculous. That is cuckoo.

They brought the globe apart to where there was a gap that they would be jumping or riding over. Right. And it was suddenly filled with crocodiles. No. But these people crashed, when was it? Every couple of weeks? No.

I looked, there was a crash not too long ago. It was in April of this year at the Washington Fairgrounds and there's actually a YouTube of it. It's not like remarkable. It just said the very end of their thing. I'll just sort of run into each other. Really? But that was a fractured leg and some broken ribs.

But other than that, everyone was okay and got right back up on the horse. Iron horse. The iron horse. The steel horse. You got anything else? No. So that's Circus Families, part of our never-ending quest to explain absolutely everything there is on planet Earth and beyond.

That's right. It's one of them. If you want to know more about Circus Families, you can type those words in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this, We Misspoke on Something in the Bridges episode. Oh, I did, Chuck. I take full responsibility. And we like to point these things out.

Do you want to set this up? Yeah. In the Bridges episode, I talked about the Hyatt Regency Skywalk collapse. Remember, you made that Lionel Richie's joke and all that stuff in 1981? Uh-huh. Well, like 104, I believe 114 people ultimately died from this thing. And I said that it was because they were dancing on the skywalk at the time. Totally not true.

There was a teedance going on in the lobby below and people were standing on the skywalks looking at it. And the skywalk apparently in the design, there had been a change in design that nobody did the numbers and crunch the math on. And this thing could barely hold up its dead weight. And then once you had, you know, a few dozen people on it, the fourth story skywalk collapsed onto the second story skywalk and both of them collapsed onto the ground. Gotcha.

It was, it's crazy. If you look up the Hyatt Regency Skywalk collapse and look at some of the images, just the destruction is amazing. Wow. All right. So I guess you just picked out the, we heard from a few people, you picked out probably the nicest one. I would imagine.

That's what we usually try to do. Hey guys, wanted to point out your explanation of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency collapse side of the wrong cause. The collapse is due to a change that was made to the initial design. Two walkways were supposed to be supported by long, continuous threaded steel rods from the ceiling. Design was changed to two separate rods. It should be noted that the original design was determined to hold only 60% of the minimum

building code load and the way it was built would only support half of that. Not enough. Not nearly enough. One bridge failure that should be mentioned is the Quebec Bridge crossing the St. Lawrence River. This bridge collapsed twice when it was being built and it cited as a reason behind the idea of registering and licensing engineers to practice, something that is a standard throughout the world now.

And that is from Taylor, who is a geotechnical engineer, branch of civil engineering that deals with soils, rocks and foundations. She said, or he, I don't know which, that I make sure the ground can support the structure. Thanks a lot, Taylor. It's a pretty neat job, I guess, and very important. Yeah, and thanks for the email. We appreciate that. And I went back and looked to try to figure out where I got that info, but I swear it

did not make up. Don't you hate that? Yeah. I've been called out on stuff that I've read and I couldn't find the source. And it's still wrong, but it's maddening. It's like, I know I didn't just create this out of my own brain. So we believe it. But thanks to everybody who wrote in and said, hey, dude, that is absolutely wrong, because

we want to make sure we get it right. So if we got something wrong that you want to point out and correct us on, let us know. You can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want

to believe. You can find in major league baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope.

We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.