When a prominent physician pared back her true age to 80 after her autopsy, Barnum insisted that her body was a fake and that she was still performing elsewhere.

In 1841, Barnum founded and built the American Museum in the heart of "Old New York City." It comprised an eclectic blend of sensational and gaudy attractions, including Tom Thumb and the Feejee Mermaid, natural history with exhibits displaying taxidermy and menageries, and art, wax figures and a Lecture Room and theatre in which Shakespeare was performed.

To many historians and social scientists, the American Museum was the bedrock of New York's urban evolution.

Remarkably perceptive of the changing demographics of the city and the confluence of different cultures, Barnum adjusted the exhibits, shows and educational materials to accommodate different cultures and tastes as well as each strata of the social classes of the times. There was literally something for everyone.

The public response was almost as varied as the museum's diversity. Some loved the museum/theatre and some were appalled by it.

The flames of that outrage were fanned by Barnum's support of temperance, and on July 13, 1865, the American Museum was burned to the ground. It has never been determined who set the fire. He subsequently built a new museum further uptown, which also burned down.

He is perhaps best known, however, for two special finds: Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind.

It was in 1842 that he discovered Charles Sherwood Stratton, whom he dubbed Tom Thumb, a man who stood only 25 inches tall and weighed a mere 15 pounds at age 11.