In 1768 , British cavalry officer Philip Astley staged horseback acrobatics accompanied by a drum in London, and was soon joined by the tamer Antoine Franconi.
He created a circular track flanked by a wooden amphitheater and later attached a ticket office to it so that people would pay to enter instead of asking for their will at the end of the show.
He covered the space with canvas and lit it with candles, which made fires very frequent. It was the first circus as we know it today , although the authentic origin is in the Chinese acrobats of 4,000 years ago, and the western antecedent in the Roman circuses.
