Houdini was very very famous escape artist.For an example,he was really unique because of how different he was from other escape artist .In the text it says no one before has so completely defined the art of escape as Harry Houdini. Houdini is popular because he was unique because he always tried dangerous tricks that nobody,he was also different the other escape artist ever did and was very very good at all his magic tricks.Most famous people were not magicians.That is why he was so good at magic because their was very little competition.Houdini is so good that everybody likes him because he blows people's mind away with how he escapes his tricks.Houdini is popular because he was known as the king of handcuffs because he mostly escapes
