Harry Houdini: WWI Super Spy!

If you're looking for a spy, a guy who can break chains with his bare hands, tumble over waterfalls and live, survive being buried alive, hold his breath for over ten minutes, catch bullets with his teeth and swallow swords whole is a pretty safe bet.

So why not ask Harry Houdini if he'd like to help you fight the Krauts as a World War I era spy? According to a new book, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero:

Over the course of his life, Harry Houdini, the great magician and escape artist, challenged the boundaries of the material and spiritual world. A new biography suggests that he also served as a spy for the U.S. and British governments before World War I. William Kalush and Larry Sloman, authors of The Secret Life Of Houdini, tell Jacki Lyden about the book.

Of course, Harry Houdini eventually died from being punched in the stomach, which is something even the paunchiest book worm usually survives multiple times over the course of recess. So perhaps Houdini was not quite the World War I era 007 superman he'd at first appear. Of course, the knowledge that Houdini was a WWI spy raises a further question: did Hitler, fearing a repeat of Houdini's role in the downfall of the Kaiser's Empire, send Nazi agents to punch Houdini in the stomach, thus allowing his Nazi regime to gain a pestilent foothold in Germany? The answer, of course, is yes, definitely.

Exposing 'The Secret Life of Houdini' [NPR]