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Harry Houdini: Death
Houdini died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix on Halloween, October 31, 1926, at the age of 52. Houdini had sustained a blow to his abdomen from McGill University boxing student J. Gordon Whitehead in Montreal two weeks earlier. A long-standing part of Houdini's act was to ask a member of the audience to punch him in the abdomen in order to demonstrate but Houdini was reclining on his couch after his performance, in this instance, and was struck several times, without the opportunity to prepare himself for the blows.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1098957546429 Despite popular belief the
appendicitis and not the blow was the cause of his death -- although the pain inflicted by the blows may have 'masked' the pain of the appendicitis, preventing the performer from seeking treatment.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/houdini.htm
Houdini's funeral was held on November 4 in New York, with over two thousand mourners in attendance. He was interred in the Machpelah Cemetery, Queens, New York, with the crest of the Society of American Magicians inscribed on his gravesite. The Society holds their "Broken Wand" ceremony at the gravesite on the anniversary of his death to this day.
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