This day in 1874 was not Harry Houdini’s birthday. But he celebrated his birthday on this day all his life, explaining in a letter to his brother that their mother “always wrote me on April 6,” so he adopted that date. Why the confusion? March 24, 1874, the date that Erich Weisz had actually been born in Budapest, was the 6th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Perhaps his parents, Rabbi Meyer Samuel Weisz and Cecilia Weisz, confused the dates from one calendar to another.
In fact, Houdini believed he was born in 1873 and apparently realized the mistake only when he examined family documents on a brief trip to Hungary in 1901. He was, at that time, gaining stardom in Europe, and his greatest feat may have been growing one year younger.
