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Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: Nabubrush on March 24, 2011, 04:55:06 pm

Title: Harry Houdini
Post by: Nabubrush on March 24, 2011, 04:55:06 pm

So Google's logo is a reference to Harry Houdini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini) today, as it's the 137th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest escape artists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapology#List_of_famous_escape_artists) (but don't forget these guys (http://www.cracked.com/article_18702_5-greatest-escape-artists-ever-were-animals.html)) in history (I guess they didn't want to wait another 13 years).

I was obsessed with Houdini as a kid - we had one of those coffee table books of "mysteries" and it had a large chapter about him, and I remember them winding it up with the promise that all of his secrets (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/39/what-happened-to-the-secrets-of-houdini) would be revealed (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/sfeature/escape.html) 50 years after his death or some crap. For some reason, I wasn't that into his debunking of charlatans back then, so I'm happy that his good work (http://www.randi.org/site/) goes on.

This all makes me wonder what he'd have thought of guys like Criss Angel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criss_Angel) and David Blaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Blaine). I like to think he'd prefer Ricky Jay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Jay), but maybe not.

Title: Re: Harry Houdini
Post by: theinevitable on March 25, 2011, 01:28:17 am

the most rage-filled moment of my childhood was when my 5th grade teacher accused me of plagiarism for saying it was "strange, but fitting" that Houdini died on Halloween.

like, seriously, how is it even "strange but fitting?" What does Houdini have to do with Halloween? How is that not a thought a 5th grader could have?

Title: Re: Harry Houdini
Post by: Nabubrush on March 25, 2011, 01:52:45 am

I remember being in early elementary school and writing on some project "today is the first day of the rest of your life". That didn't fly very well as an original thought.

On the other hand, somewhere around the same time I dropped the old chestnut "those who can't, teach" and that went extremely poorly.

Title: Re: Harry Houdini
Post by: wombat on March 25, 2011, 01:57:31 am

Them's pretty fancy words for a fifth grader, inev.

Title: Re: Harry Houdini
Post by: littlefallsmets on March 25, 2011, 02:54:06 am

I once got into an argument with my 4th grade teacher who claimed that Central America was its own continent.

Yeah.

Title: Re: Harry Houdini
Post by: Nabubrush on March 25, 2011, 03:20:15 am

I once got detention for protesting to my teacher that a mile was longer than a kilometer.*

*Possibly apocryphal.