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American History

25 Bizarre Historical Facts They Don’t Teach in School

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13. The first person to survive a drop over Niagara Falls was an American Schoolmistress.

“Woodcut of Niagara Falls from Etats-Unis d’Amerique” by Roux de Rochelle. Published by Firmin Didot Freres, Paris, 1837. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

On October 24, 1901, American schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor decided to celebrate her 63rdbirthday most unusually by launching herself in a barrel off the top of Horseshoe Falls, the largest of Niagara Falls three waterfalls. A large crowd gathered, confident they would be witnessing the schoolmistress’s inevitable death as the barrel plummeted down the 51-meter drop. However, cuts and bruises aside, Ms. Taylor made it intact- the first person to do so at Niagara Falls.

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