The Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one heroes, legends, histories, histories, and mysteries podcast.

This is your host, John Hagadorn.

It's great to be back and going after another adventure into history.

I'm going to ramble a little bit here at first, which typically isn't my style, as I prefer to get down to business

quickly. So humor me. First, a special thanks to all of you for putting us over the five million

mark and unique listens in the past year, and to those of you who helped us support this show

by listening, sharing, and supporting our sponsors you who helped us support the show by listening,

sharing, and supporting our sponsors, as well as our loyal patrons at patreon.com, forward slash

1001 Stories Network.

This great podcast adventure continues as my list of stories to research and do keeps getting

larger.

As all of you know, 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories,

and Mysteries is my flagship podcast, and into it I pour a good deal of my time and love.

The idea to do a story on Houdini came up recently from a few different directions.

First, I called my sister in Philadelphia the other day. For you Pennsylvania mainliners, she lives in Paoli, and she's big on Mad Anthony Wayne, one of Washington's most trusted generals.

By the way, Lancaster Pike, which she lives on, also known as Route 30, could have served as the East Coast counterpart to the American Graffiti Cruising Strip on the West Coast in the 50s and 60s.

And if you haven't seen that iconic movie, give it a try. It's American graffiti.

The soundtrack alone is a piece of history all by itself. Just replace those California

license plates for Pennsylvania plates and replace the palm trees with oaks and maples.

The late 50s and early 60s cars, plus teens looking

for fun, and a bunch of college kids from Haverford, Cabrini, Villanova, and Swarthmore, and

you're in. But I digress. Why did I call my sister? One reason, because I wanted to ask her

...