July 4, 1856: Bystanders gather under a tree in New York's Central Park. Their excitement attracts more people until the crowd numbers in the hundreds. Somebody props a ladder against the trunk. Another grabs a 20-foot-long pole and jabs it into the leaves.
Did the circus lose a fez-wearing monkey? Hardly anything so ordinary! It was a gray squirrel, which had escaped from a cage in an apartment building and scurried across traffic to take refuge in the park.
