Ben Franklin to Harry Houdini in 3 easy steps...

I'm a sucker for wierd historical connections and this is one of the best. It is a story of a chess playing automaton called the turk, (which was in fact a fake...) touched on the lives of Ben Franklin, Charles Babbage, Anton Mesmer and eventually led to Alexander Graham Bell seeking out Harry Houdini. It makes me feel like history is just one big club of famous figures who hung out together and acted like badasses. Sweet.
http://www.robmacdougall.org/archives/2005/01/turk_182.php