When you picture someone "walking on their head," you might think of a person moving while doing a handstand, or maybe a contortionist who bends until their feet reach the top of their head. Alexandre Patty (spelled Alexander in English) did neither of those things. What he did was a sort of hop while balancing on his head, moving around and up and down stairs at a jaw-dropping pace. Patty came from a family of French circus acrobats, and he practiced his trick walk for three years before unveiling it in front of crowds in 1904. Did it hurt? Yes, it did, at least at first. Patty eventually got used to it and said, "it doesn’t hurt anymore and I don’t know what a headache is.” Maybe he achieved the point of -dare I say it- being a numbskull.
Patty's act was a sensation in Europe and it wasn't long before he was signed with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, where he performed for decades. He earned quite a lot of money doing it, which can numb the pain of banging your head against the ground for a living. Read about Alexandre Patty, and see photos, at Weird Historian. -via Strange Company