In 1949, LIFE magazine sent famed photographer Nina Leen to document the daily life of a sassy troupe of young women who had run off and joined the famous Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, Fla. What developed was a portrait of a sisterhood formed over acrobatics that mixed high-flying wire acts with fashionable high-waisted shorts. Sarasota was once considered “the home of the American circus”. Here: an aerialist smoking while rehearsing for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, FL in 1949. (Photo By Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

A tearful Beatle lover pleads unsuccessfully with a policeman to carry her fan button to Ringo, one of the four mop-top singers who drew squeals and shrieks from more than 30,000 spectators at two Indiana State Fair shows in Indianapolis on September 4, 1964. (Photo by Bob Daugherty/AP Photo)

Mrs. Marie Graskamp of Milwaukee shows the different positions one might assume when entering the bomb shelter in Milwaukee September 3, 1958. This circular entrance is about three feet in diameter. This is the entrance (according to the builders) that would connect to the cellar of a home assuming the shelter was in the ground for added protection. If a bombing should occur, all members of family would proceed to the cellar and then through the circular port into the shelter. (Photo by AP Photo)

Japan's delegation gather to sign the formal surrender document on the U.S. Navy battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay in a September 2, 1945 file photo. (Photo by Reuters/US Navy)

A little boy shouts “Earthquake!” during a shouting contest, part of the annual evacuation drill on the National Disaster Prevention Day on September 1, 1986. The contest was aimed at teaching youngsters the importance of telling neighbors quickly and loudly of a disaster when it hits. The drill is annually conducted through out the country on the day marking the anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake that hit the Japanese capital and its vicinity on September 1, 1923, killing more than 104,000 people. (Photo by Sadayuki Mikami/AP Photo)

U.S. Army helicopters providing support for U.S. ground troops fly into a staging area fifty miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, August 28, 1966. Helicopter fuel is stored in the large rubber tanks, foreground. (Photo by Henri Huet/AP Photo)

Developed for the British American Ambulance Corps, this new motorcycle ambulance is capable of speeding wounded soldiers 90 miles an hour from the front lines to field hospitals. Its springs are synchronized with the patient's heartbeat to avoid increasing fever when traveling over various Terrain. Viewing it in New York August 27, 1941, are left to right: constable Herbert Scott of England, driver; William E. Detlor, whose firm developed the vehicle; M. W. Stand, inspector-general of Civilian Defense, and Maj. Edward Riekert, also. (Photo by AP Photo)

A woman dressed in an alien space suit carries an American flag and a sign that reads “Women's Revolution 1971” as she marches in a Women's Liberation demonstration on Fifth Avenue in New York, August 26, 1971. (Photo by Marty Lederhandler/AP Photo)