Magician Harry Houdini died on Halloween
On this day · 31 October 1926
The world's most famous escape artist met one snare he could not slip: a ruptured appendix that killed him on Halloween.
On October 31, 1926 — Halloween — the celebrated escape artist Harry Houdini died at age 52. The official cause was diffuse peritonitis, the result of a burst appendix.
Days earlier, while resting backstage in Montreal, Houdini had reportedly invited a student to test his famous stomach muscles. The young man delivered several hard punches before Houdini was ready. Whether or not those blows were truly to blame — a point historians still debate — his appendix soon ruptured. Running a fever above 104 degrees, he insisted on performing at Detroit’s Garrick Theatre on October 24 before collapsing.
Houdini lived for another six days, dying early in the afternoon of Sunday, October 31, 1926.
Surgeons removed the appendix, but the infection had already spread. He died at a Detroit hospital, fittingly on the holiday his admirers would forever associate with him. His widow, Bess, held annual séances for a decade, hoping for the agreed-upon message that never came.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
