September 3, 2026 • 10 mins
The passing of a legend is never an easy moment to wrestle with—whether it's one person or hundreds.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
It was October 11th of 1926, and Harry Houdini was
on stage in Albany, New York. He was hanging by
his ankles, and his assistant slowly lowered him into a
water-filled tank. Suddenly, one of the pieces of the wooden
apparatus around his ankles malfunctioned, smacking into his left ankle
and fracturing it. He didn't even wince in pain. He
(00:59):
was in complete control of his body, after all. and
despite the shattered ankle, he went on with the trick,
completely submerging himself in the tank. He finished the show,
and then went to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed
the ankle and treated it, and advised that Houdini should
cancel his next few tour dates. But the magician wouldn't stop.
He didn't want to disappoint his fans, and to him,
(01:21):
pain was always just something to be conquered, not to
give in to. One of his most famous tricks was
to call people up on stage and have them punch
him in the stomach as hard as they could to
prove that he had trained his stomach muscles to endure
any blow. But the ankle clearly was bothering him. Throughout
the next week, he kept returning to the doctor in
Albany for further treatment. But he still decided to attend
(01:44):
a lecture at McGill University in Quebec on October 19th.
The topic was important to him. He was teaching the
students about the movement known as spiritualism and the tricks
that different supposed psychics employed to make their clients think
that they could really commune with the spirits. Houdini often
lectured on this topic. His lifelong obsession with magic meant
(02:06):
that he took offense to anyone who claimed to actually
be magical. It wasn't that he was completely closed off
to the idea of a spiritual world. In fact, he
hoped that there was one. But he knew a fellow
illusionist when he saw one, and he hated the idea
of someone in his trade using their abilities to manipulate
grieving people trying to contact deceased loved ones. So, while
(02:29):
he was at McGill, he shared with the students about
trick tables, lights, and cold readings, anything and everything that
might keep this younger generation from being fooled. Houdini found
them to be such a receptive audience that he then
invited them to come visit him backstage at his next show.
On the night of October 22nd, the students visited him
(02:49):
backstage at that show in Montreal. a strange, awkward man
named J. Gordon Whitehead joined the group. He came forward,
asking Houdini if he could truly withstand any blow to
his stomach. When Houdini said yes, Whitehead started striking him
repeatedly as hard as he could. Some accounts say that
he wouldn't stop until the students pulled him away. Anyone
(03:13):
else might have seen it as assault, but Houdini always
hid his pain. He brushed the incident off and said
that it was fine, but secretly he had been feeling
unwell for days. He had wanted to chalk it up
to his ankle, but the punches seemed to exacerbate stomach
pain that he was already experiencing. As he rode on
a train to Detroit the following day, the pain got worse,
(03:35):
and he started to sweat. His fever rose to 104 degrees,
but not surprisingly, he refused to go to the doctor.
He had his opening night in Detroit to perform at,
after all. and it must have been painful to watch
as he was in immense torment. As soon as the
curtain fell, Houdini collapsed. He was taken to a hospital
(03:56):
where doctors diagnosed him with appendicitis. His appendix had ruptured
and it was poisoning his body. They successfully removed it
and Houdini seemed to be recovering. Reports indicated that he
was in high spirits, no pun intended, talking with his
family and his nurses. However, his blood poisoning took a
turn for the worse and on October 31st, Halloween nights
(04:19):
of 1926, Houdini passed away. The common explanation for the
appendicitis is that J. Gordon Whitehead's punches caused it to rupture.
The vigor with which he attacked Houdini almost suggests that
he had a grudge against him. One popular theory suggests
that he was hired by angry spiritualists who resented being
(04:40):
debunked by Houdini. But there is a lot of debate
in the medical community about about whether or not appendix
rupture from external trauma is even possible. Such cases are rare,
and even then doctors believe the ruptures could have already
happened and the punches just exacerbated them. If anything, Houdini's
death seems to have been the result of a tragic
(05:02):
series of events. Hurting his ankle, getting punched, refusing to rest,
all of these things kept him and his doctors from
realizing what was actually hurting him. By the time they did,
He was already septic. And look, I love storytelling. Obviously,
it's what I do for a living. So I, like
a lot of people, want to go looking for good
(05:24):
story in things that happened in the past. So I
can see how tempting it is to think that there
was something strange about his death. Maybe, though, the answer
is much more simple. That it was actually likely that
someone as hardworking and risk-prone as Houdini would be vulnerable
to this kind of medical complication. Still, the world will
(05:45):
always be a little curious to know if there was
some sleight of hand involved in this magician's final disappearance.
(06:05):
It's a word that calls to mind an ancient, far-removed
world from the modern day. Samurai. But there were actually
samurai all the way up until 1877, the year that
the telephone was invented. And the warriors themselves played a
major role in their own demise. The 1870s were a
time of rapid modernization for Japan, which, until recently, had
(06:29):
been an isolated feudal state run by a military government. Samurai,
who had held privileged positions within the old government, suddenly
found themselves unemployed, disenfranchised, and forgotten. The country was moving
on and leaving their old way of life in the dust.
In the region of Satsuma, which had been one of
(06:49):
the most powerful domains in the old military government, there
was a renowned samurai named Saigo Takamori. He had opened
more than a hundred private academies to retrain former samurai
for new, modern jobs. But he wasn't just teaching his
students how to read and farm. He also taught them
how to use modern weapons favored by the new Japanese army.
(07:11):
like rifles and artillery. When the Japanese government found out
about this, they got spooked. They knew that it was
dangerous for the former samurai to have access to these weapons.
At any moment, tensions might boil over and they could
launch a revolt. So in the middle of the night
in January of 1877, the government sent a warship to
(07:33):
an arsenal in Satsuma, hoping to remove all the weapons
that were stockpiled there under the cover of darkness. But
this turned out to be a terrible mistake. The local
samurai caught wind of the raid, and they fought back.
Within weeks, it spiraled into a full-scale rebellion. Over the
next several months, the samurai who had founded the academies,
(07:53):
Saigo Takamori, led more than 12,000 samurai across Japan. They
were headed for Tokyo, the capital, where they planned to
confront the emperor. But their training at Saigo's academies hadn't
fully prepared them for the realities of modern warfare. Even
with the firearms that they'd acquired, the samurai were terribly
outgunned and outnumbered against the Japanese army. As the army
(08:17):
bombarded them nonstop with artillery shells, the samurai's manpower and
ammunition dwindled. They eventually had to resort to fighting with
their swords in a true battle of tradition against technology.
That summer, after months of battle, the samurai were forced
to retreat, and by September they'd been pushed all the
way back to Satsuma, where the rebellion had begun. But still,
(08:40):
Saigo refused to surrender. With his last 500 surviving samurai,
he launched one final hopeless battle against the Japanese army.
Vowing to fight to the very end for their way
of life, the samurai charged with their swords drawn into
a barrage of artillery fire, and every single one of
them died. The end of the Satsuma rebellion signaled the
(09:03):
definitive end of the samurai era. The Japanese army had
proven itself victorious, and with the samurai gone, Japan proceeded
to march unimpeded into the modern era. I hope you
enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This
show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with
(09:25):
iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim & Mild team,
and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show
and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities.
You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
(09:46):
ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories,
but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn
more and sign up over at patreon.com slash grim and mild.
And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
It was October 11th of 1926, and Harry Houdini was
on stage in Albany, New York. He was hanging by
his ankles, and his assistant slowly lowered him into a
water-filled tank. Suddenly, one of the pieces of the wooden
apparatus around his ankles malfunctioned, smacking into his left ankle
and fracturing it. He didn't even wince in pain. He
(00:59):
was in complete control of his body, after all. and
despite the shattered ankle, he went on with the trick,
completely submerging himself in the tank. He finished the show,
and then went to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed
the ankle and treated it, and advised that Houdini should
cancel his next few tour dates. But the magician wouldn't stop.
He didn't want to disappoint his fans, and to him,
(01:21):
pain was always just something to be conquered, not to
give in to. One of his most famous tricks was
to call people up on stage and have them punch
him in the stomach as hard as they could to
prove that he had trained his stomach muscles to endure
any blow. But the ankle clearly was bothering him. Throughout
the next week, he kept returning to the doctor in
Albany for further treatment. But he still decided to attend
(01:44):
a lecture at McGill University in Quebec on October 19th.
The topic was important to him. He was teaching the
students about the movement known as spiritualism and the tricks
that different supposed psychics employed to make their clients think
that they could really commune with the spirits. Houdini often
lectured on this topic. His lifelong obsession with magic meant
(02:06):
that he took offense to anyone who claimed to actually
be magical. It wasn't that he was completely closed off
to the idea of a spiritual world. In fact, he
hoped that there was one. But he knew a fellow
illusionist when he saw one, and he hated the idea
of someone in his trade using their abilities to manipulate
grieving people trying to contact deceased loved ones. So, while
(02:29):
he was at McGill, he shared with the students about
trick tables, lights, and cold readings, anything and everything that
might keep this younger generation from being fooled. Houdini found
them to be such a receptive audience that he then
invited them to come visit him backstage at his next show.
On the night of October 22nd, the students visited him
(02:49):
backstage at that show in Montreal. a strange, awkward man
named J. Gordon Whitehead joined the group. He came forward,
asking Houdini if he could truly withstand any blow to
his stomach. When Houdini said yes, Whitehead started striking him
repeatedly as hard as he could. Some accounts say that
he wouldn't stop until the students pulled him away. Anyone
(03:13):
else might have seen it as assault, but Houdini always
hid his pain. He brushed the incident off and said
that it was fine, but secretly he had been feeling
unwell for days. He had wanted to chalk it up
to his ankle, but the punches seemed to exacerbate stomach
pain that he was already experiencing. As he rode on
a train to Detroit the following day, the pain got worse,
(03:35):
and he started to sweat. His fever rose to 104 degrees,
but not surprisingly, he refused to go to the doctor.
He had his opening night in Detroit to perform at,
after all. and it must have been painful to watch
as he was in immense torment. As soon as the
curtain fell, Houdini collapsed. He was taken to a hospital
(03:56):
where doctors diagnosed him with appendicitis. His appendix had ruptured
and it was poisoning his body. They successfully removed it
and Houdini seemed to be recovering. Reports indicated that he
was in high spirits, no pun intended, talking with his
family and his nurses. However, his blood poisoning took a
turn for the worse and on October 31st, Halloween nights
(04:19):
of 1926, Houdini passed away. The common explanation for the
appendicitis is that J. Gordon Whitehead's punches caused it to rupture.
The vigor with which he attacked Houdini almost suggests that
he had a grudge against him. One popular theory suggests
that he was hired by angry spiritualists who resented being
(04:40):
debunked by Houdini. But there is a lot of debate
in the medical community about about whether or not appendix
rupture from external trauma is even possible. Such cases are rare,
and even then doctors believe the ruptures could have already
happened and the punches just exacerbated them. If anything, Houdini's
death seems to have been the result of a tragic
(05:02):
series of events. Hurting his ankle, getting punched, refusing to rest,
all of these things kept him and his doctors from
realizing what was actually hurting him. By the time they did,
He was already septic. And look, I love storytelling. Obviously,
it's what I do for a living. So I, like
a lot of people, want to go looking for good
(05:24):
story in things that happened in the past. So I
can see how tempting it is to think that there
was something strange about his death. Maybe, though, the answer
is much more simple. That it was actually likely that
someone as hardworking and risk-prone as Houdini would be vulnerable
to this kind of medical complication. Still, the world will
(05:45):
always be a little curious to know if there was
some sleight of hand involved in this magician's final disappearance.
(06:05):
It's a word that calls to mind an ancient, far-removed
world from the modern day. Samurai. But there were actually
samurai all the way up until 1877, the year that
the telephone was invented. And the warriors themselves played a
major role in their own demise. The 1870s were a
time of rapid modernization for Japan, which, until recently, had
(06:29):
been an isolated feudal state run by a military government. Samurai,
who had held privileged positions within the old government, suddenly
found themselves unemployed, disenfranchised, and forgotten. The country was moving
on and leaving their old way of life in the dust.
In the region of Satsuma, which had been one of
(06:49):
the most powerful domains in the old military government, there
was a renowned samurai named Saigo Takamori. He had opened
more than a hundred private academies to retrain former samurai
for new, modern jobs. But he wasn't just teaching his
students how to read and farm. He also taught them
how to use modern weapons favored by the new Japanese army.
(07:11):
like rifles and artillery. When the Japanese government found out
about this, they got spooked. They knew that it was
dangerous for the former samurai to have access to these weapons.
At any moment, tensions might boil over and they could
launch a revolt. So in the middle of the night
in January of 1877, the government sent a warship to
(07:33):
an arsenal in Satsuma, hoping to remove all the weapons
that were stockpiled there under the cover of darkness. But
this turned out to be a terrible mistake. The local
samurai caught wind of the raid, and they fought back.
Within weeks, it spiraled into a full-scale rebellion. Over the
next several months, the samurai who had founded the academies,
(07:53):
Saigo Takamori, led more than 12,000 samurai across Japan. They
were headed for Tokyo, the capital, where they planned to
confront the emperor. But their training at Saigo's academies hadn't
fully prepared them for the realities of modern warfare. Even
with the firearms that they'd acquired, the samurai were terribly
outgunned and outnumbered against the Japanese army. As the army
(08:17):
bombarded them nonstop with artillery shells, the samurai's manpower and
ammunition dwindled. They eventually had to resort to fighting with
their swords in a true battle of tradition against technology.
That summer, after months of battle, the samurai were forced
to retreat, and by September they'd been pushed all the
way back to Satsuma, where the rebellion had begun. But still,
(08:40):
Saigo refused to surrender. With his last 500 surviving samurai,
he launched one final hopeless battle against the Japanese army.
Vowing to fight to the very end for their way
of life, the samurai charged with their swords drawn into
a barrage of artillery fire, and every single one of
them died. The end of the Satsuma rebellion signaled the
(09:03):
definitive end of the samurai era. The Japanese army had
proven itself victorious, and with the samurai gone, Japan proceeded
to march unimpeded into the modern era. I hope you
enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This
show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with
(09:25):
iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim & Mild team,
and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show
and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities.
You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
(09:46):
ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories,
but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn
more and sign up over at patreon.com slash grim and mild.
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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