(Roughly) Daily

George W. Hall, Jr. (1868)

The circus is a magical place, packed with performers of astounding feats and possessed of a language of its own.

Thanks to the Wisconsin Historical Society, readers can browse a remarkable gallery of circus folk from years past— like the young snake handler above.

As we resist the urge to run away and join up, we might stay tuned, as it was on this date in 1951 that the first long-running soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, premiered on CBS.  The show, which ran for just over 35 years (though on NBC in its last five years), focused on Joanne, a housewife played for the entire run by Mary Stuart, in a midwestern town called “Henderson”; its first head writer was Agnes Nixon, the Grande Dame of Daytime Television, who went on to create and write such stalwarts as One Life to Live and All My Children (the former of which was later written by the remarkable Michael Malone, whose efforts won him an Emmy to go with his Edgar, O. Henry, and Writers Guild awards).

(source: Wikimedia)