Tuesday, 18 September 2012

In The 1930s, Daredevils Would Drive Up Walls With Lions For Passengers

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The Wall of Death is a carnival sideshow featuring a silo- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder inside of which motorcyclists, or the drivers of miniature automobiles, travel along the vertical wall and perform stunts, held in place by centripetal force.

Derived directly from United States motorcycle boardtrack racing in the early 1900s, in 1915 the first 'silodromes' with vertical walls appeared. Sometimes the riders drove alone, sometimes they had another performer as a passenger and sometimes the passenger was a lion.

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