Though it might sound quaint, there was a time when people could be astonished. Before supercomputers fit into shirt pockets and Presidents tweeted. Before moving pictures were beamed through the air. Before moving pictures. Not only could people be astonished—they enjoyed it. Loved it enough to pay for it. And so businesses sprang up to meet the demand. The astonishment industry was called the circus. And what an industry it was. Picture yourself in a quiet American town of ordinary people doing nothing even remotely astonishing. One day, a couple of strangers show up with handbills and pas

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been entertaining audiences for a long time. Its history goes back 146 years — to about the time when professional baseball emerged and before Coca-Cola was invented. But this substantial chapter in American history comes to a close on Sunday. After years of declining ticket sales and seemingly endless conflicts with animal rights groups, Ringling Bros. will stage its final show in Uniondale, N.Y. Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson is one of hundreds of Ringling performers and crew members with extraordinary talents who will be out of a job come

On the steps above the makeshift stables, the circus priest is getting nostalgic. "I did a baptism once in Fort Worth, Texas. ... I came in on an elephant carrying the baby, which was four weeks old," the Rev. Jerry Hogan says. "Now that baby is 15. I've married a lot of these kids and I've baptized their kids, and watched them grow." It's late April at Baltimore's Royal Farms Arena, in the closing weeks of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's "Out of This World" tour. The last-ever show is Sunday night in Uniondale, N.Y. The circus isn't profitable any more, according to the company that