How Houdini died is that he drowned failing to escape from a water tank during a performance, having to ultimately be pulled from the tank.
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Houdini would hold his breath underwater for several minutes while hanging upside down from a set of locked, heavy wooden stocks around his ankles.
Houdini died on Oct. 31, 1926, in a Detroit hospital. He had been taken thereafter he collapsed on stage after a performance of his Water Torture Cell escape.
Harry Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874, as Erik Weisz. The Weisz family emigrated to the U.S. in 1878, changed their last name to Weiss and Erik’s first name to Ehrich, and settled in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Ehrich’s father worked for a time as a rabbi.
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Young Ehrich, known also as Ehrie (eventually morphed into Harry), and his family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin after his father lost his position at the Appleton synagogue. Harry left school after the third grade and ran away from home by age 12.
Houdini eventually changed his name to Harry White. Athletic and having made his way to New York, he successfully competed in swim meets, bicycle and foot races, and boxing matches.
He also became fascinated with magic, after having read The Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, a French magician. With this new career in mind, Harry took up Houdin’s name, though adding the “i” because a friend of his, Jack Hayman, told him adding the “i” at the end would make it mean “like Houdin” in French.
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