"The one who tried to beat Jules Verne's around-the-world-in-eighty-days record?" "The same. Verne's Phileas Fogg did it in eighty days in fiction. Nellie Bly did it in fact in 1889 and 1890. She went around the world in seventy-two days. Anyway, before that, while just starting out as a cub reporter on the New York World, Nellie Bly undertook a story about insane people who had been committed to Blackwell's Island and how they were being treated. But instead of doing the story in an orthodox way, Nellie disguised herself in ragged clothes, gave herself a deranged look, feigned insanity, and got herself committed to Blackwell's Island. As a patient, she saw the miserable conditions and the cruelty to the other patients firsthand. When she got out, she wrote two front-page stories about the experience. This expose made her famous overnight."