There is no real recorded history of the first sideshow in America. P.T.Barnum started promoting the human novelties he called “freaks” in his traveling show in 1835 and he opened his larger freak show at the American Museum in Manhattan in 1841. When a fire in 1868 destroying his museum, Barnum founded P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus. From the Fiji Mermaid, General Tom Thumb and George Washington’s nurse to Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker, Barnum presented intriguing individuals with unique bodies and minds as wild and exotic marvels.