The Realm Of Bizarre News 31: Houdini's Enemies
Did you know Harry Houdini claimed that he was from Wisconsin, when in fact he was from— well, if I told you that, then you could cheat on the trivia question, and we can’t have that. Along with some great insights into that famous magician’s life, we have baseball oddities, tics on planes, and a sofa bed incident.
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The Realm Of Bizarre News
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Welcome once again ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, to the realm of bizarre news. I'm your host Dr. Franklin Rule and we start off with a trivia question. Let me extricate here from it's paper prison. The question Harry Houdini claimed that he was born in Appleton, Wisconsin but he was actually born in which European country? Multiple choice, inverse alphabetical order, was that Romania, Poland, Hungary or Germany? Have a prize, the only prize for the correct answer. One pat on the back. Heck of a lot better than a slap on the belly with a wet trout.
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Houdini
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Now, Houdini was born in 1874 in Europe, came to America at age four and developed and intense interest in magic. At seventeen he began a magic show that lasted for five years. He was moderately successful with it, but wanted to sell his equipment. Indeed, put an ad in the paper to sell his equipment for twenty dollars but there were no takers. Lucky for him, because then he developed a challenge act where he claimed he could extricate himself from any pair of handcuffs and that catapulted him to worldwide success. He went to England and made a deal with Scotland Yard to use their handcuffs for publicity in exchange for spying on Russian and German terrorists while on tour. When he returned to America he made a similar deal with the Chicago Police to use their handcuffs in exchange for spying on American counterfeiters. He's making enemies everywhere.
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Family Deaths
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Then his beloved mother died. He went from one nuance to another hoping to make contact but because he had practiced being a medium himself, he saw their tricks and began exposing them, making enemies among the spiritualist community. Then in 1926, he and his wife suddenly became deathly ill. Possibly from poisoned food. She went into the hospital. He continued working but fractured his ankle onstage.
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Fatal Peritonitis
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Then there's the famous case, where collegian came into his dressing room and punched him in the stomach. He claimed that he could sustain any type of punch to the stomach as long as he could first of all tense his muscles, but didn't have a chance to. Then two days later, in a hotel lobby, the same thing happened. A stranger punched him in the stomach and that gave him fatal peritonitis. Now, were those hit men literally hired by spiritualists, terrorists, or criminals? It's a possibility. He died on Halloween, 1926 at the age of 52. He made a pact with his wife that he would attempt to return from beyond the grave using a secret coded message which was "Rosebelle believe". Psychic Arthur Ford claimed that he had interpreted that message. His wife believed it but others are sceptical. We still don't know.
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Trivia Question
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Now for the trivia question, again, which country was Houdini born? Romania, Poland, Hungary, or Germany? You say Poland. No. It was Hungary. His real name, Erik Weiss.
Now here's a baseball cap, recently the LA Angels lost to the Dodgers in an inter-league game. One to nothing. Despite pitching a no hitter. No hits for the Dodgers. They lost, very unusual. Fast forward two weeks later July 10th against the Oakland Athletics they won a game in eleven innings. Eleven to ten, yielding twenty hits. So its so unusual. It's only happened once before in the history of baseball. When a team loses a no hitter, the same season they win a game where they give up twenty hits. That team 1992 Boston Red Sox. Unbelievable!
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The Tick on a Flight
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Now here is a tick, and on a flight from Denver to Des Moines, a woman in economy class screamed when she saw a little tick and the flight was delayed six hours while they hunted for other ticks. Now, I think the passengers should have been given an opportunity to vote on this. I certainly would have voted to continue the flight. Who's afraid of a little tick, ouch, ooh!
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Sofa Beds
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Now let's open up the vault of strange desks here. What do we have? The angry wife. This is a gal in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her husband was drunk on the sofa bed. She was so infuriated, she kicked the lever that caused it to crush him to death. Yes. He was crushed to death by the sofa bed collapsing on him. So guys, if your wife is angry at you and you're in a sofa bed, get up quick! We can't afford to lose even one of you out there. You're our precious viewers. Thank you. Now until next time. May the power of the Cosmos be with you! Yes! Yes! Yes! And stay off those sofa beds if you have an angry wife!