On this day, her 63rd birthday, Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. A schoolteacher by profession, Taylor had fallen upon hard times and hoped that the stunt would improve her financial situation. She used a custom-made barrel for her trip, constructed of oak and iron and padded with a mattress. The barrel was lowered into the water from a rowboat, the lid was screwed down, the air inside was compressed with a bicycle tyre pump, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island. The river currents carried the barrel over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, which has since been the site for all successful daredevil stunting at Niagara Falls. Rescuers reached her barrel shortly after the plunge and Taylor was found to be alive and relatively uninjured. Unfortunately for Taylor, the stunt did little to improve her financial situation and she died penniless at the age of 82.
