The crowd held its breath, eyes fixated on the glass tank. Water seeped into every corner as Houdini, upside down, made the seemingly impossible attempt to escape. The seconds ticked away; suspense hung heavily in the air. Suddenly, in a rush of motion and a cascade of water, Houdini burst to the surface, gasping for air. This was Harry Houdini, the most famous escape artist in history. He escaped from handcuffs, chains, locked boxes, and even water-filled containers. Crowds were amazed as he got out of situations that looked impossible. Police would bring their toughest handcuffs, sure he couldn’t open them, but Houdini always freed himself in seconds. He survived being buried alive, locked in prison cells, and thrown into frozen rivers while tied up. People called him a magician, but he said he used only skill and careful practice, not magic. Even now, more than ninety years after his death, his life is still full of mysteries. Some of his secrets were never revealed.

Houdini was born as Erik Weisz in Hungary in 1874. His family was poor and moved to America when he was a child. They first lived in Wisconsin, then moved to New York City. Erik took the name Harry Houdini after a French magician he admired. As a young man, he did small magic shows, but they weren’t very successful. Things changed when he started doing escape acts. He saw that people liked danger and suspense more than card tricks. He challenged police to lock him in their jails, and he always escaped. Newspapers wrote about him, and soon he was famous in America and Europe.

Houdini’s most dangerous act was called the Chinese Water Torture Cell. He was hung upside down by his feet and lowered into a tall glass tank full of water. The top was locked. A curtain hid the tank so the audience couldn’t see how he escaped. They could only watch the time and hope he would make it. The act scared people so much that some fainted or had to look away. After several tense minutes, Houdini would come out, soaking wet but alive. He did this act for years, and no one ever figured out exactly how he did it—not even his assistants.

One mystery is about how Houdini died. He passed away on Halloween night, October 31, 1926, at age 52. The official cause was a burst appendix, which led to a serious infection. But the events were unusual. A week before he died, a college student visited him backstage and asked if Houdini could really take any punch to the stomach. Houdini was known for his strong muscles and often let people hit him to show his strength. Before he could get ready, the student punched him several times while Houdini was sitting down, so he couldn’t brace himself. The punches hurt him a lot. A few days later, he collapsed during a show. Doctors found his appendix had burst, and he died soon after. Some people think the punches caused the injury, while others believe his appendix was already about to burst. No one knows for sure.

Before he died, Houdini made a secret plan with his wife, Bess. They created a code, a special message only they knew. Houdini promised that if he could contact her after death, he would use this code. Every year on the anniversary of his death, Bess held séances to try to reach him. Many spiritualists and mediums claimed they had messages from Houdini, but none of them knew the code. After ten years, Bess gave up. She said, “Ten years is long enough to wait for any man.” The code was never revealed while she was alive, adding another mystery to Houdini’s story.

Houdini did not believe in life after death or in people who said they could talk to the dead. He spent years exposing fake mediums and spiritualists. After his mother died, he wanted badly to contact her and visited many mediums, hoping to find a real one. Instead, he found that they were all using tricks to fool grieving people. This made him angry. He started going to séances in disguise and showing how the frauds worked. He wrote books to explain their tricks. Many spiritualists disliked him for this, and some even threatened him. But Houdini thought it was important to protect people from those who took advantage of their sadness.

Another mystery is how Houdini did his famous escapes. He was very secretive about his methods and practiced for hours every day, keeping his secrets even from close friends. He was great at picking locks and could open almost any handcuff with hidden tools. Sometimes he swallowed small picks and brought them back up when he needed them. He was also very flexible and could dislocate his shoulders to get out of straitjackets. Still, some escapes seemed to need more than just skill. People wondered if he had tricks no one else knew. After he died, many magicians tried to copy his acts. Some managed, but others could not.

Even Houdini’s coffin became part of his legend. He once did a trick where he was buried alive and had to escape from a coffin underground, using a special bronze coffin for the act. After he died, Bess chose to bury him in that same coffin. It seemed right for someone who spent his life escaping from boxes. The coffin was big and heavy, designed to be hard to escape from. In the end, Houdini stayed in the one box he could not get out of.

Why are we still fascinated by Houdini almost a hundred years later? Maybe it’s because he showed us the dream of escaping any trap and overcoming any obstacle. He lived at a time when many people felt stuck in growing cities and factories, and he proved that limits could be broken. Houdini also stood for mystery. Even as science explained more about the world, he kept secrets and showed that some things could stay unknown. Today, we still watch his performances and wonder how he did them. That question keeps his memory alive, always escaping, always mysterious.