This Day in History: Hungarian-born American illusionist, stunt performer and mysteriarch Harry Houdini was born on this day in 1874. If you're wondering what a "mysteriarch" is, it is someone who presides over mysteries. Magician Penn Jillette once said, "We look back on the 20th Century in 100 years, and look at entertainment, the only two people in the running for being remembered in the 20th Century are Elvis Presley and Houdini."
Houdini named himself after another magician, Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin whom he later attacked as a liar and a fraud. Houdini also had a brother who was also a successful magician, Theo Hardeen.
Houdini spent much of his time debunking psychics, spirit mediums and spiritualists as phonies. He had a good friendship for a while with Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, until Doyle's wife held a seance to conjure up Houdini's beloved mother. 15 pages of automatic writing were produced in fine grammatical English. Houdini smelled a rat because his mother barely knew any English.
There is now a wild theory that Doyle had Houdini killed because Houdini called his wife a liar.
See: Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kill Harry Houdini? Probably not, but their weird rivalry is fascinating
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