Ehrich Weiss (Harry Houdini) born to Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weiss and his wife Cecelia on March 24 in Budapest, Hungary. At age nine, Ehrich and some neighborhood friends establish a five-cent circus.

Prints & Photographs Division, Arnold Genthe Collection, LC-G3999-0049-A (b&w glass neg.), Library of Congress Jack London and Harry Houdini were two of the most remarkable Americans of the early ...