The man many consider the greatest magician of all time died at the age of 52 in 1926. Prior to his untimely passing, he amazed people all around the world with his astonishing escapes. Handcuffs were no match for him. Neither were milk cans, straitjackets, packing crates tossed into various bodies of water, nor the occasional Chinese water torture cell.
Sadly, Houdini's life came to an end after a nasty encounter with something far less thrilling. According to Houdini: His Life and Art, the seemingly superhuman magician was looking through his mail in a dressing room on the afternoon of October 22 when two college students asked to speak with him. One asked Houdini if he could really withstand any heavy blow to his abdomen, as he'd often professed. Houdini said he could. Before he could properly prepare for the trick, though, one of the students punched him four times. Houdini was also recovering from a broken ankle, which certainly didn't help matters.
The legendary magician still performed that evening as planned at Montreal's Princess Theatre, but he was suffering badly. After two sleepless nights, he performed one final time on October 24 in Detroit. He barely made it through the show, and his wife finally convinced him to go a nearby hospital. He died there on Halloween, but historians still debate whether it was the student's punches that did him in, or peritonitis, or a combination of the two.
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