Who had the unluckiest death of all time?

Harry Houdini!!

Houdini's death was caused by a McGill University student, Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead (b. 1895 – d. 1954), who delivered a surprise attack of multiple blows to Houdini's abdomen.

But why is it considered unlucky?

No single performer is more synonymous with magic than Harry Houdini. Houdini, born Ehrich Weiss, began his extensive career performing magic tricks, but soon moved on to death-defying escape acts and near-impossible stunts. And on August 6, 1926, he pulled off what many have called his greatest stunt—remaining submerged in a sealed tank of water for 91 minutes. It was also his last major trick—he died several months later.

Handcuff Escapes

Houdini first rose to prominence in the early 1900s as a handcuff escape artist. The trick was easy enough, only requiring the performer to access a hidden set of keys he kept hidden. Where Houdini stood out from the rest of the crowd, however, was the ease and speed with which he escaped. Houdini invented a belt made out of flexible steel with special compartments that he used to store any tool he would need to escape. Houdini performed hundreds of successful handcuff escapes, often within mere seconds of having the cuffs put on him.

Chinese Water Torture Cell

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Arguably Houdini's most well-known and oft-imitated act, Chinese Water Torture Cell was also one of his most dangerous. In the trick, Houdini was lowered head-down into a full glass water tank with his feet manacled. After dropping into the water via pulleys, the top of the tank was secured, a drape thrown over the glass, and Houdini had two minutes to escape his confinement.

An assistant would always keep an axe handy just in case Houdini failed to escape and the glass had to be broken. No illusions here.

The Vanishing Elephant

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Not willing to settle for simply disappearing rabbits, on January 7, 1918, Houdini attempted to perform a vanishing act on an elephant. The illusion, performed at New York’s Hippodrome Theater, involved a massive wooden cabinet and a 10,000-pound elephant named Jennie. After displaying the full interior of the cabinet to the Hippodrome's audience, Houdini walked Jennie into the wooden structure and shut its doors and curtains. After a moment's pause, the cabinet was reopened and rotated, showing the whole audience that Jennie had completely vanished.

How did he pull it off? Unsurprisingly, sitting far away from a spinning, dark box doesn't give you the best look inside. Houdini had handlers waiting inside the cabinet to throw a dark tarp over Jennie, and rotated the structure quickly enough that no one caught a glimpse of the vague elephant-like shape inside.

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East Indian Needle Trick

In this gross-out performance, Houdini would swallow 50 to 100 needles and 20 yards of thread. After presenting his empty mouth to the audience, the magician would then reach inside his throat and promptly pull out every needle, fully threaded together.

Despite pulling off plenty of insane physical feats in his lifetime, this was not one of them. Houdini accomplished this illusion with some careful mouth-maneuvering and plenty of practice. The threaded needles were kept hidden in a bunch between his lower lips and teeth, and were swapped with the unthreaded needles and thread after appearing to swallow them. All Houdini had to do was cover the hidden prop with his fingers when he spread his mouth for the audience's inspection.

Escape From Murderer’s Row

In 1906, Houdini attempted an escape from the South Wing of Washington, D.C.'s Old Jail, also known as Murderer’s Row. Guards stripped Houdini of all his clothes and placed them in another locked cell nearby before cuffing Houdini and shutting him in. Two minutes later, he was free. Houdini's stunt didn't end there, though. Before grabbing his clothes, he opened the doors to eight other locked cells, switched the prisoners around, and locked the doors again. Houdini's entire escape from Murderer's Row reportedly took 21 minutes.

The Overboard Box Escape

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Houdini performed many variations of box escapes throughout his career. One of the most notable was the Overboard Box Escape on July 7, 1912. After placing manacles on his hands and feet, assistants placed Houdini in a wooden crate that they proceeded to nail shut. Just to top things off, the box was then bound with rope and weighed down with 200 pounds of lead before being dropped into New York's East River. Houdini required 57 seconds to escape.

Straightjacket Escape

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Houdini introduced his famous straightjacket escape into his regular act after witnessing an insane asylum patient struggling inside one while visiting Canada.

Having his hands restrained inside the jacket meant that Houdini could not escape nearly as easily as he could from handcuffs, and instead relied on his whole body to obtain slack and wiggle free. Houdini focused on first bringing his arms to the front of his body, sometimes needing to dislocate his shoulder in order to do so. From here, he used his teeth to loosen the jacket's straps.

Houdini learned to escape so skillfully that he began performing the act for audiences while hung upside down and bound at the ankles, eventually cutting his escape time from 30 minutes down to three.

And so many more notable escapes. For someone who escaped death in so many ways, being dead because of a few blows is really unlucky and sad. Rip Harry.