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On this day in history, October 31, 1926, escape artist Harry Houdini shackled eternally by Grim Reaper

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Harry Houdini, the remarkable illusionist who stunned international audiences with his death-defying escape act, was shackled eternally by the Grim Reaper on this Halloween in history, Oct. 31, 1926.

« As one of the outstanding personages of the American stage, [Houdini’s] popularity lasted for a quarter-century, » wrote The Los Angeles Times in its obituary of the performer, considered by many the greatest magician in history. 

« Houdini counted among his audiences the royalty of Europe and Asia. »

Harry Houdini’s cause of death was peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix. 

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But questions continue to surround the bizarre circumstances of Houdini’s death at age 52, including suggestions by some fans that the celebrated performer was murdered. 

Houdini had just given a lecture at McGill University in Montreal and met with students after the appearance.

Hungarian-born American magician, escape artist and psychic debunker Harry Houdini (1874-1926) showed his handcuffs as he stood in a wooden box on a boat and prepared to be submerged, a predicament from which he would escape to the delight of onlookers, East River, July 7, 1912.  (FPG/Getty Images)

The muscular magician was known to boast that his stomach was so strong that he could withstand a blow from any man. 

« One student, Joselyn Gordon Whitehead, asked if he could take a punch and immediately Houdini nodded an assent, » wrote PBS News Hour in a 2019 online account of the escape artist’s death. 

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« The student hit the great magician twice but before he had a chance to tighten his abdominal muscles and brace himself. The ‘hammer-like’ punches caused visible pain and Houdini stopped Whitehead in mid-blow on the third attempt to punch his gut. »

The pain only worsened as Houdini endured a 15-hour train ride to Detroit. 

Harry Houdini film

Harry Houdini in movie art for the film « Haldane Of The Secret Service, » 1923.  (Houdini Picture Corporation/Getty Images)

He was soon diagnosed with acute appendicitis.

Yet he performed one more show before being rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery on Oct. 24.

« Houdini counted among his audiences the royalty of Europe and Asia. » 

It was too late. 

Houdini’s appendix had already ruptured. 

He died a week later from the infection.

« Whitehead was not charged in the incident and lived out a solitary life in Montreal, » reported the active fan site WildAboutHoudini.com. 

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Medical research today indicates it’s exceedingly rare for blunt trauma to cause appendicitis. But in the 1920s, it was widely perceived that Whitehead’s punches killed Houdini.

« The poor medical student probably went to his grave thinking he had deprived the world of the great Harry Houdini, » wrote PBS.

The magician was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874 and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Houdini

« Houdini had made a career out of surviving the impossible, which only made the circumstances of his 1926 death all the more mysterious. » (Getty Images)

His demise under such unexpected yet mundane circumstances is all the more shocking in light of his career spent defying death — or least appearing to defy death.

« The Hungarian-born escape artist jumped off bridges while handcuffed and wearing leg irons, slithered out of sealed milk cans filled with water, and devised a ‘Chinese Water Torture Cell’ in which he was submerged and suspended upside down by his ankles, » reported History.com.

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« The heart-pounding getaways usually involved a healthy dose of trickery and sleight-of-hand, but they were also fraught with genuine risk. »

Harry Houdini without shirt

American conjuror Harry Houdini (1874-1926) here with chains, c. 1906.  (Photo by APIC/Getty Images)

Many fans hoped to hear Houdini speak from the afterlife. 

« Famous in life for his improbable escapes from physical constraints, the illusionist promised his wife, Bess, that — if at all possible — he would also slip the shackles of death to send her a coded message from the beyond, » Smithsonian Magazine noted in a 2021 chronicle of his unusual life and bizarre death. 

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But Bess Houdini, who married the magician in 1894 and who also served as his stage assistant, was left disappointed in the end.

« Houdini promised wife Bess to send her a coded message from the beyond. »

As Smithsonian further noted, « On Halloween 1936 she finally gave up, declaring to the world, ‘Houdini did not come through … I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me, or to anyone.’ »

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Houdini is buried at Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York. 

His grave has become a site of pilgrimages and various Halloween rituals among the magician community. 

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The cemetery is closed on Halloween, however, because of repeated acts of vandalism at Houdini’s grave on October 31, according to reports.  

« Houdini had made a career out of surviving the impossible, which only made the circumstances of his 1926 death all the more mysterious, » wrote History.com in a biography of a performer celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.  


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