Born on March, 24, 1874 in Budapest, Harry Houdini remains to this day the most famous escpae artist of all time. His real name was Ehrich Weisz, and as a teeager, he briefly began doing card magic as "Eric the Great." He changed his name to "Houdini" after reading "The Memoirs of Robert-Houdin" which was the autobiography of the greatest magician of the day. Houdini hoped to someday be like Robert-Houdin, who performed for kings and queens and was one of the first magicians to be extravagantly successful.

For ten years afte his death, his wife Bess Houdini held a yearly seance at the Knickerbocker Hotel on Halloween in order to attempt to contact him in the after-life. They had actually worked out a secret code before his death to see if they could indeed make contact when the time actually came. Bess never heard from him.