The Great Houdini

Houdini was a very interesting and smart person, no one could beat 'The Great Houdini" at magic.

Ehrich Weiss known as "The Great Houdini," was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1874. He was raised in a poor Jewish family. His father the rabbi didn't make enough money to feed his big family, so him and his brother were forced to do odd jobs for money.

Later on when Weiss was nine years old he loved acrobats and magicians and wanted to become a performer. He even made a trapeze out of a broomstick and ropes and told his mom to make him a costume for him. Ehrich would hang from his knees on the trapeze, put needles on the ground and pick them up with his eyelids.

Years later Ehrich read so many books about magic and he even practiced some of the tricks. He then took the French magicians name Jean Euge`ne Robert- Houdin and changed it a little. Instead of Houdin, he added i and Houdin became Houdini and instead of Euge`ne it was changed to Harry. Ehrich's new name was Harry Houdini.

One day when Houdini performed, he met his future wife Bess Rahner, and began to perform all over the world with her. Harry began to do tricks that were "impossible" to people. He did handcuff escapes, straight jacket escapes while hanging upside down by his feet, under water stunts and metamorphosis tricks (to disappear) and so on. No one understood how Houdini accomplished his tricks, like his under water stunt, but every magician has their secrets. The trick to Houdini's handcuff escapes was to keep a key in his throat or sometimes he just took all his strength to rip open the cuffs. Houdini's tricks were so amazing that he became one of the world's greatest magicians.

Sadly in the year 1926, of October 31'st Houdini had passed away. Two of his fans heard he could take any punch and before Houdini could crunch his muscles, the boys punched him several times and Houdini was left in severe pain. Soon after that, Houdini had to take out his appendix, but the surgery made him even worst. Houdini then had a performance and collapsed on stage with a 104 degrees fever. While being rushed to the hospital Houdini was already dying. Many people arrived at his funeral and never forgot about him. Still today we talk about him and we'll never forget that he was number one at magic.

In conclusion, Harry Houdini was an amazing magician. He also did tricks that no one could do. I hope that people will continue talking about Houdini for another hundred years or even more.

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