The Heartbreaking Truth About History’s Most Exploited People

The Heartbreaking Truth About History’s Most Exploited People For over a hundred years, people paid money to stare at other human beings. They were billed as freaks, missing links, and living curiosities — displayed in tents, sold as children, and in one case, placed in a zoo. But behind every cruel stage name was a real person: intelligent, talented, and robbed of the ordinary life they deserved. This is the true, documented story of the people history put on display, and who they actually were behind the act. We tell the real stories of Prince Randian, Krao Farini, Schlitzie, Daisy and Violet Hilton, Stephan Bibrowski, Chang and Eng Bunker, Julia Pastrana, and Ota Benga. They were sold as monsters. Every one of them was a person. 🔔 Subscribe for more of the strange, dark, and forgotten truths behind the world you thought you knew. SOURCES: Prince Randian (1871–1934) — Guyanese-born performer with tetra-amelia syndrome; exhibited by P.T. Barnum from 1889 as "The Human Torso / Caterpillar"; spoke four languages, married with five children; appeared in the 1932 film Freaks. (Wikipedia; All That's Interesting.) Krao Farini (c.1876–1926) — born in Laos with hypertrichosis; taken as a child and exhibited as "The Missing Link"; performed 40+ years incl. Barnum & Bailey; remembered by peers as "the peacemaker of the sideshow." (Wikipedia; Library of Congress photo archives.) Schlitzie (c.1901–1971) — American sideshow performer with microcephaly and severe intellectual disability; exhibited under invented identities for decades; appeared in Freaks (1932). (The Vintage News; sideshow history archives.) Daisy & Violet Hilton (1908–1969) — English conjoined twins handed over as infants and controlled by exploitative guardians who took their earnings; legally emancipated in the early 1930s (reportedly on Houdini's advice); died in poverty. (Wikipedia; Grunge; British Medical Journal historical record.) Stephan Bibrowski ("Lionel the Lion-Faced Boy") (1890–1932) — Polish