The golden age of the American circus coincided with the Gilded Age, and one Phineas Taylor Barnum (P.T. for short) was a living emblem of both: a New York City swindler who called himself the ...

(Predictably, P.T. Barnum scored high in all traits but "Cautiousness ... It involves a New England railroad worker named Phineas Gage who, in 1848, suffered an amazing accident: an iron ...