Criss Angel Mindfreak - History of Magic

1913: Harry Houdini first performs the Chinese Water Torture Cell. In what will become perhaps his most famous routine, the magician suspends himself upside down in a glass container overflowing with water. He then proceeds to hold his breath for three minutes. Houdini's Chinese Torture Cell leaves a haunting impression on fellow magicians to this day. Most feats of endurance, whether they be in ice or water, can be traced back to Houdini's original routine.
1921: British magician P.T. Selbit places a woman inside a wooden box then proceeds to saw her in half. A new benchmark is set. Fellow magicians race to create their own, more macabre versions.
1937: Rajah Raboid performs perhaps the most astounding version of sawing a man in half ever seen. First, Robert Eck, a plant from the audience, is brought onstage to be sawed in half. Then, his half-bodied brother Johnny emerges from the box, walking on his hand and shouting, "I want my legs! Where are my legs?"
1940: Herb Zarrow develops an astounding card shuffling technique that allows him to know the location of particular cards no matter how many times he shuffles the deck. The Zarrow Shuffle, as it is called, is undetectable and instantly adopted by magicians and card sharks alike.
1943: Mentalist Joseph Dunninger, the first paid entertainer to be heard on radio, begins his show Dunninger, the Master Mind. As the first magician to truly harness the power of mass media, Dunninger's voice is said to be more recognizable to the public than the voice of the president.
1952: Texan J.B. BoBo publishes Modern Coin Magic. To this day, the book is considered the bible of close-up coin magic.
1953: Ed Marlo, one of the world's most accomplished card magicians, publishes Cardician. In the book, he describes sleight-of-hand techniques and guarded secrets that continue to be used 50 years later.
1955: The Amazing Randi spends 1 hour and 44 minutes in a sealed coffin before running out of oxygen. In doing so, he shatters Houdini's previous record by 11 minutes. (Fifty years later, Criss Angel performs a similar stunt while buried under 6 feet of earth. Angel worms his way out in 90 minutes.)
1957: Bruce Spangler revolutionizes "geek" or "shock" magic with his needle-through-arm illusion. Called "You Do Voo Doo," Spangler shoves a 10 inch straight pin through his arm then proceeds to show the audience as blood begins to drip from the wound. The illusion later becomes the hallmark of magician-turned-actor Harry Anderson.
1974: Doug Henning begins a four-and-a-half-year run of his hit Broadway show The Magic Show. Henning rejects the tuxedo-and-top-hat look that has been associated with magicians for generations. Instead, he updates the image with more modern, casual clothing.
1974: During his Billion Dollar Babies tour, rock star Alice Cooper joins forces with The Amazing Randi. Each night onstage, Randi places the singer's head in a guillotine and proceeds to "execute" him. The collaboration further solidifies the partnership between magic and rock 'n' roll.
1975: Magicians Penn and Teller begin performing together. The iconoclasts go on to develop a street-savy style of magic that involves plenty of gore but remains grounded in comedy.
1978: Ed Balducci first publishes a description of his Balducci Levitation. The levitation allows magicians to float right off the ground, without props or a stage. The Balducci Levitation survives today in numerous variations and has become a hallmark of street magic.
1981: Lance Burton makes his debut appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny, a magician himself, is so enamored with Burton that he allows him to perform for an unprecedented 12 minutes. The event marks America's introduction to a new generation of younger, edgier performers.
1983: During his yearly network special, David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear. In doing so, he instantly raising the stakes on what can be achieved and what audiences now expect.
1994: Criss Angel makes his prime-time television debut in the ABC special Secrets.
1999: For his TV special Lance Burton: Master Magician: Top Secret, Burton is chained to the tracks of a roller coaster. With a coaster approaching at nearly 80 mph, the magician manages to escape at the very last second. Once again, the stakes are raised for fellow magicians.
2005: Criss Angel's prime-time series Mindfreak debuts on A&E. That year, Angel is also named Magician of the Year by The Academy of Magical Arts. Colleagues call him "the most important man in magic."