Harry Houdini

He escaped from handcuffs, jail cells, a milk can and a tank of water, hanging upside down. The one place he never came back from was the grave, though plenty of people have asked him to.

Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874 and spent his life telling everyone he was born in Wisconsin. The son of a struggling rabbi, he went from factory jobs and dime museums to become the most famous escape artist who ever lived, and then turned his skills on the fake mediums who took money from the grieving.

This Turbo History short tells the whole story, from the Budapest birth register to his death on Halloween 1926 and the century of seances since:

• The name he borrowed from a French magician, the beer hall where a talent scout found him, and the handcuff act that made him
• Europe, the Mirror handcuff challenge, jail breaks, bridge jumps, the milk can and the Water Torture Cell
• His flights in Australia, and the rival who may have flown there first
• His war on fraudulent mediums, the Margery affair, and his testimony before Congress in 1926
• What the rest of the world was doing, from the Wright brothers to the fall of the Qing dynasty
• The punches in Montreal, the burst appendix in Detroit, and why nobody can prove how much one had to do with the other
• The seances, the "Rosabelle, believe" code, and the legends that grew after him

A hundred Halloweens later, the man who escaped everything is still being asked to come back.

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