John Magill is a historian at and curator of The Historic New Orleans Collection. In this interview, John puts some perspective on our modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations. John takes us back to the early 1800s, a time when New Orleans’ Mardi Gras parades were not as well organized as they are now, and paraders sometimes even threw flour on spectators. John also talks about the coldest Mardi Gras on record and shares a little-known incident that involved the King of Carnival on that bone-chilling day. If you think New Orleans was the first American city to celebrate Mardi Gras, listen in – you will be surprised.