barrel

Travel by barrel?

Annie Edison Taylor

Source: Francis J. Petrie Collection

Planes, trains, buses, cars, bicycles and skateboards are common, modern modes of travel. But on October 24 in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor – on her 63rd birthday – became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

She survived, and since then others have given it a try – in barrels, a kayak and even on a jet ski. And while some of those people survived, today anyone who attempts to go over the falls will get arrested and fined.