Another of Houdini’s headline-grabbing manacled bridge jumps took place from Pittsburgh’s Seventh Street Bridge, pictured above and below, on March 13, 1908, with a crowd of 40,000 people. The stunt was also performed the year before from the Market Bridge in Philadelphia, according to one source. His jump from a bridge in Passaic, New Jersey, also went well, except that the pollution in the river nearly killed him.

In late 1916 Houdini treated Pittsburgh to another spectacle, escaping from a straitjacket while dangling from a skyscraper at Wood Street and Liberty Avenue. Staff from the city’s Mayview asylum were in charge of securing him for the stunt.