Word: straits
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...could easily be forgotten. No jail cell could hold him, no locks or chains could confine him. Houdini released himself thousands of times from every known physical restraint, often purposely putting his life in danger to dramatize the escapes. He was certainly no slouch: why escapes from a strait jacket standing upright when you can do it hanging by your ankles from a flagpole, 100 feet above a New York street, with thousands watching? Why get out of complicated shackles and leg irons on terra firma, when you can make it more difficult by first jumping off a bridge into...
Lots of people. Escape artists have survived to the present day, all trying--probably in vain--to match the caliber of Houdini. One such artists is Ron Fable, a 35-year-old performer from Milwaukee, who works at fairs and public gatherings in the Midwest. Fable specializes in strait-jacket escapes, using a skin tight jacket that is particularly difficult to master. Like Houdini, he hangs from a crane or flagpole while making his escape...
Sommers has done other dangerous escapes, but is retiring from the business now at the age of 43. "I'm getting a little too old for that strenuous work now," he says wistfully. But he does not regret all the time he has spent in a strait-jacket: "How else could I get paid for doing something exciting?" he asks...
...been thinking of defecting for many years, prepared for his escape by listening to broadcasts from Taiwan giving directions on routes and proper signals for defectors to use. His opportunity came when his unit was transferred last month to a base in Fukien province, just across the Taiwan Strait...
...barren territory is located on the western shore of the 17-mile-wide strait called Bab el Mandeb ("gate of sorrows" in Arabic), which links the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. More than 70 ships, including many oil tankers, pass through the strait every day, to and from the southern end of the Suez Canal. Moderate Arab states bordering the Red Sea-Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia-fear that the Soviet Union, already well established on the eastern side of the strait in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, may have designs on Djibouti in a move...