Every minute, nearly four million cubic feet of water cascades over Niagara Falls’ 167-foot drop, giving the falls the greatest flow rate in the world of any waterfall over 50 meters high.
Such a formidable force of nature has naturally attracted a certain breed of person eager to conquer it.
The first person to ride over the falls and live to tell the tale was not a famous daredevil or performer, but a widowed teacher named Annie Edson Taylor.
Taylor was struggling financially when she seized upon the idea of riding over the falls in a barrel to secure fame and fortune.
She used an oaken barrel with a crudely cushioned interior, which she tested by sending it over the falls with a cat stuffed inside. The traumatized feline survived the plunge, so on Oct. 24, 1901 — her 63rd birthday — Taylor climbed inside the barrel and was set adrift from a rowboat upstream.
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