The 8 freaks in human history, one scarier than the other”
Representative figures of 8 classic freak shows in history.
Do you remember we talked about the strange and bizarre in ancient circuses a long time ago? This is because freak shows were very popular in the past, even used as references in the super-hit TV series “American Horror Story”! Just like in life, today we are going to introduce 8 famous acrobatic performers in history to you. Are you ready?
- The Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick)
I believe everyone is familiar with the story of the Elephant Man, and when it comes to classic freaks, he is definitely not to be forgotten! In fact, poor Elephant Man was originally healthy at birth, but as he grew older, his appearance became more and more distorted, and he even had to wear a mask so as not to scare people.
- John Half-and-half Man Pecinovsky
John likes to split his body in half and wear different colors on each side. You can notice that he even intentionally leaves half of his beard and trims only half of his hair! Although he is not a professional acrobat performer, this style has left a deep impression on people!
- The Tattooed Lady
Isobel Varley from England has tattoos covering her entire body except for her face! In order to have tattoos on her head, she even shaved off her hair. In addition, she wears 50 rings on her body, with 29 of them just on her ears!
- The Two-Headed Nightingale
The conjoined twins Millie and Christine McKoy are connected at the backside. They were originally enslaved on a farm in 1851, and later sold to a circus in their childhood. Before their biological mother found them in the United States, they were kidnapped many times during their European tour. After learning how to sing, the two officially debuted as “The Two-Headed Nightingale”. They not only could sing and write songs, but also learned five languages, becoming international superstars!
- Dead Baby Margaret Clark
This mysterious twin was born with one of them stillborn, and a pair of constantly growing hands sticking to the other’s belly! However, the authenticity of Margaret has always been unverifiable, and some suspect that the dead baby was fake and taped on.
- Mighty Atom Joseph Greenstein
Joseph was reportedly a very short man, but he was given the title of “Little Titan” (a character from Greek mythology)! Although he was only 5 feet 4 inches tall (about 162 cm) and weighed 65 kg, he could lift 215 kg of weight just by biting on two nails with his teeth! The most amazing thing is that he could even bend an iron rod with his hair.
- Giant Hudson
He weighed 1,400 pounds (635 kg!) and died in 1991. Although he was not a professional performer, his huge size always attracted the attention of the audience. It is said that before he died, he had to eat 2 packs of sausages, a pile of bacon, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, 8 hamburgers per day, etc…
8. The Rubber Girl Agnes Schmidt
Hailing from Hamburg, Germany, she can stretch her skin up to 14 inches (approximately 35 cm) and her unique physical condition allows her to have multiple piercings all over her body without feeling pain or bleeding!
After reading this, one might really think that anything is possible! Although the authenticity of some of these claims is still uncertain, with the world being so vast, I believe that there are even more unique and strange cases out there that we simply do not know about!”