100% badass. Houdini was one
incredibly cool guy. Most of his tricks were not the
simple illusions most modern magicians employ, but feats of amazing
strength, endurance, and dedication. He is best remembered for stunts like the
water tank escape, but allow me to recall what I think was his
greatest escape:
Houdini was
bound by the hands and feet with
manacles, and imprisoned with a
straightjacket. He was put in a barrel to be thrown into a river. However, the river had
frozen over. So he had a hole
cut in the ice, and he was tossed through the hole into the
icy water. He escaped the barrel and his bindings - only to find he had
drifted further down the river, and was far from the hole he had entered through. So a
new hole had to be cut in the ice so he could escape, all the while with him trapped in
freezing water under a sheet of ice.