Rossa Matilda Richter

Rossa Matilda Richter (1863–1937) was a circus performer and actor (stage name, Zazel) who became the first recorded human cannonball in 1877, at the age of 14, launching herself from a spring-style "cannon".

Richter was a child actor and got into circus-style performances as a trapeze artist. On 10 April 1877, she incorporated a new stunt, the human cannonball. The first such performance was at the Royal Aquarium in London when she was 14. She was fired out of a spring-style cannon, traveling 6.1 metres (20 ft) and landing in a net. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Richter was the first human cannonball, though the distinction has been contested by others who claim Ella Zuila and George Loyal, also known as "The Australian Marvels", performed the act a few years prior.

The cannon was invented by William Leonard Hunt, a Canadian daredevil known as "The Great Farini" — U.S. Patent, No.115,837 was issued on 13 June 1871 to "William Farini, now of London, England [for the invention of] certain new and useful Apparatus for Projecting Persons and Articles into or through the Air"; and, further, U.S. Patent, no.214,663 was issued on 22 April 1879 to "William Leonard Hunt, of Westminster [for the invention of] and Improvement in Theater Appliances" — and used rubber springs to limit the distance she would travel, employing a gunpowder-based explosion only for effect. According to P. T. Barnum, who had traveled to London to see the performance, Zazel pleaded with him to take her away. Though she was the star of the act and took the physical risks, Hunt was keeping most of the money the act brought in.

Richter went on tour with Barnum's Circus, performing in France and throughout the United States. She married Barnum's manager, George Oscar Starr (1849–1915) — later, manager of The Crystal Palace — she was his second wife.

...
Wikipedia