This is the memory palace, I'm Nate Demet.

There are some things we just don't know in this story. Let me say that up front.

There are some disputed facts, but that just happens sometimes when you look back into the past.

And when you're talking about an industry built on hyperbole in obfuscation.

So some facts in this story are a little fuzzy, but the important ones are indisputable.

The range and maximum height of the projectile does not change with the mass of the object.

The projectile will continue on its course until the force of gravity overcomes the projectile's

initial force. Vertical acceleration is constant and equal to minus 9.8 meters per second squared.

The first human cannibal was one of two people, depends on which book you read.

But I can tell you pretty safely that the guy who invented the art form,

the guy who made it possible to shoot a person out of a cannon,

such that they safely land some suitably impressive distance away,

was William Leonard Hunt. Hunt was a Canadian, or an Englishman or from Long Island,

depending on who you ask. But either way, he spent most of his professional life pretending to be

Italian, or at least vaguely European, as senior Farini, the Acrobat.

And he was the real deal. In August of 1860, he walked over Niagara Falls on a tight rope.

Then he walked back, blindfolded, with baskets on his feet.

And then he did it while carrying another dude in his back. Then he hung from the center of the

rope from his toes, swaying in the breeze, soaked by the mist that came up from the roiling waters

below. After about 10 years in the game, he realized something. The stuff can kill you.

And so senior Farini changed his life, and started making his living thinking up new ways for

other people to risk theirs. His most enduring innovation isn't actually a cannon. Let's clear that

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