Video: 'Harry Houdini: Biography'

(Halloween Sunday, October 31, 1926, 1:26 p.m. EST) — Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz), an American escapologist, illusionist, and stunt performer noted for his escape acts, died today in Room 401 at Detroit’s Grace Hospital from peritonitis (swelling of the abdomen). He was 52.

Witnesses to an incident at Houdini’s dressing room in the Princess Theatre in Montreal on October 22, 1926, speculated that Houdini’s death was caused by Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, who repeatedly struck Houdini’s abdomen.