Welcome to the past and the curious.

My name is Mick Sullivan.

We have a great show for you today.

First thing you're going to hear is a story about PT Barnum.

Really, really interesting man, you've got a really interesting life.

You're going to hear another story about the longest painting in the world.

And in addition to all of that, we've got quiz time.

And if that was not enough we have music a wonderful song by the

Tamar Lane Trio my name is Mick Sullivan and the first voice you're going to hear is Victoria

Arrival. Egress. Do you know what it means? If you don't, that's okay. Neither did the people in this true story.

New York City in the 1840s. The world was not as familiar then as it is today. Let me put it like this. How many of these

have you seen in real life? A shark? A crocodile? A hippopotamus? A bear? A dinosaur skeleton?

Even if you haven't seen these things in real life, you have a lot of resources available for you to learn more.

You can go to the library for books,

books, explore online, watch a TV show about them,

or ask someone who's seen one, and they can tell you.

It wasn't that easy in the 1840s. Most people never got to see things

like these. So when P.T. Barnum, a famous showman, whom we'll talk more about in the future,

opened a museum in New York City, people rushed to see it.

Originally a museum, which set on the busy New York Street of Broadway, was known as Scutters Museum. Scutters had a collection of

old fossils, minerals, stones, and the like, but people had grown tired of the

displays, which never seemed to change. Mr. Barnum bought it and quickly made arrangements to display some of the most fantastic things people could imagine.

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