Since early modernity, science has been integral to the repertoire of traveling showpeople. Itinerant magic theatres, including those of Grandsart-Courtois, Loramus-Gallici, Lemeur, Delille, and De Verli, toured fairs across Europe, captivating 19th-century audiences. They not only mesmerized crowds with illusions but also introduced scientific phenomena through demonstrations of optics, physics, electricity, and emerging technologies like automata and magic lanterns. Blending education with spectacle, they offered platforms for engaging the public with scientific and technological advancements, while maintaining a sense of wonder and mystery.
Drawing on archival research from the Science at the Fair project, this paper explores itinerant showpeople as pivotal actors in transnational circulations of scientific ideas, imaginations and aspirations. Their mobilities, multilingual exchanges, and cross-border networks positioned them as transcultural mediators. Combining entertainment with accessible scientific demonstrations, they fostered Enlightenment-era curiosity about the natural world.
The role of performance in mediating ideas about science, technology, and progress for audiences with often limited formal education underscores the importance of mobile, popular venues in shaping public ideas and imaginaries of science. Rather than critiquing the “validity” of transmitted knowledge or distinguishing between legitimate and charlatan science, this paper situates these performers as historical agents of cultural and media transformation and reveals how they reflected and influenced societal perceptions and cultural beliefs about science and its practitioners. This paper argues that science and magic are two sides of the same coin with a shared aspiration to explore mysterious or incomprehensible phenomena, pushing the boundaries of what is known, visible and possible.

Over the nineteenth century the number of zoos increased from one to over a hundred, across all five continents. Information exchange among them was crucial for mastering the challenges of keeping “exotic” animals in captivity.
“Zoo travellers” played a crucial role in this circulation of practical knowledge, first on a European and then a global level. They visited zoos to collect information on how to transport, feed, house and cure lions, elephants, ostriches and kangaroos. Zoo travellers included (future) zoo directors preparing for their job, emissaries on official missions sent by zoo boards, and private individuals on their own initiative. They published reports, books, and articles in specialist journals and the general press. Zoo travellers and their writings exerted a strong networking effect between zoos on a global scale before supranational associations (which started in 1935).
“Best practice” examples from foreign zoos were imitated or adapted to improve zoos “back home”. Apart from practical aspects of zookeeping, zoo travellers also addressed fundamental questions: What is a zoo for? Instruction, research or entertainment? What should the zoo teach the general public and how?
This paper draws on a database of over fifty zoo travellers, from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. They shared the conviction that solutions to problems in zoo management might be found anywhere. Around 1900, zoos outside Europe, for example in Buenos Aires, Calcutta or Cairo, became points of reference. Following the path of zoo travellers allows decentring zoo history from a focus on Western zoos.

Over the course of his reign from 1840 to 1889, the second Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, travelled abroad four times, starting in 1871. The first three trips played a fundamental role in building a cosmopolitan image for both the Emperor and the young, tropical Brazilian Empire, independent from Portugal since 1822.
Pedro II presented himself on these trips as an enlightened Emperor, with deep knowledge of the arts and sciences. During his visit to the United Kingdom in 1871, he visited scientific societies, such as the Royal Society, and talked to influential figures in the scientific community, such as the head of the Greenwich Observatory, George Airy.
The question arising is whether the strategy of amalgamating images of scientist and Emperor was able to build a positive representation of himself and Brazil. Not always. In Brazil, his interest in science was often seen as a distraction from his real duties and local politics. In the case of London, unstudied so far, the persistence of the slave system in Brazil, which only ended in 1888, made it difficult to portray an enlightened Emperor and scientist. Doubts seem to disappear, however, with the election of Pedro II as a member of the Royal Society a few months after his visit.
This paper takes Pedro II's visit to London in 1871 and subsequent acceptance into the Royal Society as a starting point to discuss the problem of the construction and reception of the image of a scientist Emperor locally and abroad.

For at least 70 years from the 1860s to the 1930s the father and daughter Richard and Mary Proctor were global figures in the popularisation of astronomy. Most influential in the English-speaking world, they both explicitly combined British and North American traditions of science communication while each of them had a profound influence on Australia and New Zealand.
Richard and Mary Proctor present an interesting case of the craft of science communication being passed on in a family tradition. Mary learnt many of the skills of publishing—in a rapidly changing industry—from Richard and would go on to be a significant exemplar for the emerging profession of science journalism. New evidence is presented for this from Mary's global network of correspondence.
The wide performance of the Proctor's astronomy was a significant aspect. Their books had a global circulation but it was especially through their lecturing around the world that they were able to interpret universal themes within local contexts.
Nonetheless, the two popularizers had significantly different motivations. Richard, with a background in observational astronomy and keenly interested in the organisation of scientific work presented grand theories of the evolution of the cosmos. Mary, attuned to the cultural role of astronomy and intent on promoting the cause of women in science was also interested in the mythology of astronomy. Both of them, in their own way, tell a story of the global heritage of the celestial science.