Harry Houdini escaped handcuffs, straitjackets, locked boxes, and underwater chambers. But on October 31, 1926, the world’s most famous escape artist reportedly met the one predicament he couldn’t escape: death. Exactly 100 years later, a new book suggests that even the date of his death may be wrong.

The official story is familiar. Houdini died at 52 in Detroit’s Grace Hospital from peritonitis following a ruptured appendix. His death came nine days after a student repeatedly punched him in the abdomen, allegedly testing the magician’s ability to withstand powerful blows.

But was that really what killed him?

The Punch That Became a Legend

On October 22, 1926, Houdini was resting in his dressing room at Montreal’s Princess Theatre when a McGill University student named J. Gordon Whitehead reportedly asked whether he could withstand punches to the stomach.

Whitehead struck him several times before Houdini was properly prepared.…