5000 people watched Jean-Franýois Gravelet, from France, dressed in pink tights and a yellow tunic, tightrope walk 160 feet above the Niagara gorge for the first time on this day.

It was his first attempt but he was to return over the next couple of years slightly twisting the entertainment for a new audience...

We are honestly not making this up: Other stunts included him tightrope walking across the Niagara dressed as an ape, pushing a wheelbarrow, crossing half way to cook an omelet and then continuing, once he did it with his manager sitting on his back, and once blindfolded...

He died in 1897.