The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is drawing to a close this weekend after 146 years of performances and travel that at times have been marred by tragedy and celebrated in film, but also constant. The circus has its roots in a spectacle that began two decades before the U.S. Civil War, equal parts freak show, zoo and museum. Traveling performances began in 1871, and 10 years later it officially became the circus that generations grew up watching. It has evolved over the years, most recently with its decision to retire its elephant acts. Some milestones in the history of the circus: • 1841: Phineas Taylor Barnum buys Scudder's American Museum in New York City and renames it Barnum's American Museum, which was something of a zoo, museum, lecture hall and freak show. It was filled with artifacts and items from around the world. The museum later burned down. Barnum also took his show on the road as ...

Variable representing a random phenomenon A random variable (also called random quantity , aleatory variable , or stochastic variable ) is a mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on random events. [1] It is a mapping or a function from possible outcomes in a sample space to a measurable space, often the real numbers. This graph shows how random variable is a function from all possible outcomes to real values. It also shows how random variable is used for defining probability mass functions. Informally, randomness typically represents some fundamental element of chance, such as in the roll of a dice; it may also represent uncertainty, such as measurement error. [1] However, the interpretation of probability is philosophically complicated, and even in specific cases is ...