In 1824 Scottish merchant Robert Hunter saw what he took for a strange creature in a river in Siam and found two teenage boys joined at the chest. Chang and Eng, born in 1811 to a family of Chinese descent, were brought to the United States in 1829 by Hunter and sea captain Abel Coffin, under a contract the twins later said paid only $500. This episode follows their early tours in costume, invasive exams including phrenology, arrests after defending themselves in Massachusetts and fleeing a riot in Alabama, and the penny pinching management of Susan Coffin.

At 21 they broke away, dressed in tailored suits, ran their own shows, and grew wealthy. In 1839 they settled in North Carolina, became citizens despite a federal law limiting citizenship to free white persons, took the surname Bunker, married sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates, and had 21 children. They also enslaved as many as 18 people. The Civil War wiped out their Confederate investments, Chang suffered a stroke in 1870, and in January 1874 Eng died about two hours after his brother.

• How the twins split time between two households every three days
• Their brief 1860 contract with P.T. Barnum, a business rival, not their creator
• Northern newspapers that turned their bodies into a fictional allegory about secession
• Dr. William Pancoast’s finding that Eng died of fright and the competing blood loss theory
• A record lifespan of 62 years and more than 1,500 descendants