Harry Houdini Research Paper

Harry Houdini: Death Defying Escape Artist The handcuff king, death defying showman, best magician of all time. Erich Weiss was known as many things, but one name is known by all: Harry Houdini. Erich was born in Europe, but soon moved to Appleton, Wisconsin where he visited the local circuses and found he was a natural acrobat. (5) When Erich was eight his father lost his job which later lead him to run away. houdini showed many examples of perseverance, like spending many hours escaping things, doing shows through extreme pain, along with many others to accomplish being the greatest magician and escape artist of all time. (1) Harry spent many hours practicing escapes from ropes, cages, and handcuffs, Showing a lot of perseverance. When Houdini first started out with his shows he started with rope escapes which caused Houdini to spend an immense time practicing with them. Then when his escapes got more advanced, and while he started to escape handcuffs, he started talking to locksmiths for hours, learning everything he could about locks and handcuffs, until he could escape virtually anything with a lock. (28) And so his first nickname was born: The Handcuff King. …show more content…
While Houdini brought a new trick to his crowds, he broke his ankle. Instead of stopping the show Houdini finished his escape, and then continued on with his show (115). Then once when a buckle on a challenge bag’s strap was pulled so tight, it burst a blood vessel in his kidney. even though it made him sick he still did shows for weeks until he visited a doctor in Pittsburgh, which told him “...if he did not stop straining his body, he would be dead in a year”(76), but yet he still continued his escapes. In the end he did not actually die because of how much stress he put on his body during a