David Seth Kotkin, known professionally as David Copperfield, is an American magician, described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history.
Fortney Hillman Stark Jr., known as Pete Stark, was an American businessman and politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 2013. A Democrat from California, Stark's district—California's 13th congressional district during his last two decades in Congress—was in southwestern Alameda County and included Alameda, Union City, Hayward, Newark, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Fremont, as well as parts of Oakland and Pleasanton. At the time he left office in 2013, he was the fifth most senior Representative, as well as sixth most senior member of Congress overall. He was also the dean of California's 53-member Congressional delegation, and the only openly atheist member of Congress.
John James Conyers Jr. was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. Representative for Michigan from 1965 to 2017. The districts he represented always included part of western Detroit. During his final three terms, his district included many of Detroit's western suburbs, as well as a large portion of the Downriver area.
Peter Anderson Sessions is an American politician from Texas who is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 17th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party, he has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 11 terms. He chaired the House Rules Committee from 2013 to 2019 and is a former chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He was defeated for reelection by Democrat Colin Allred in 2018. On October 3, 2019, Sessions announced that he was running for Congress again in 2020. He was elected to the 17th district congressional seat on November 3, 2020.
Terror Train is a 1980 slasher film directed by Roger Spottiswoode in his directorial debut and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, and Hart Bochner. Set aboard a moving train on New Year's Eve, the film follows a group of pre-medical school students holding a costume party who are targeted by some killers who steal their costumes after murdering some students to avoid being caught. It features supporting performances from Sandee Currie, Anthony Sherwood, and David Copperfield.
Carl Ballantine was an American magician, comedian and actor. Billing himself as "The Great Ballantine", "The Amazing Ballantine" or "Ballantine: The World's Greatest Magician", his vaudeville-style comedy routine involved transparent or incompetent stage magic tricks, which tended to flop and go "hilariously awry" to the wisecracking Ballantine's mock chagrin. He has been credited with creating comedy magic and has influenced comedians and magicians alike.
This timeline of magic is a history of the performing art from B.C. to the present.
The International Magicians Society (IMS) is the world's largest magic society as recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. The IMS began in 1968 and now has over 41,000 members worldwide. It was created to help promote and preserve the art of magic and provide a format where magicians could share their secrets and ideas. The society gives a Merlin Award to magicians each year in recognition of their achievements.
David Berglas is a British magician and mentalist of German-Jewish descent. His secret technique of locating a particular card within a pack has been described as the Holy Grail of card magic. He was one of the first magicians to appear on UK television.
A magician's assistant is a performer in a magic act who is not billed as the magician or principal name in the act. The role of an assistant can include holding the props that are used by a magician, shifting props onto and off the stage, and serving as a living prop in illusions that involve manipulation of the human body. Other aspects of the role can include dancing or acting as visual ornamentation, sometimes for simple aesthetic purposes and sometimes to misdirect audience attention. The figure of the glamorous female assistant has become a stereotype or icon in art, popular media and fiction.
Platform magic is magic that is done for larger audiences than close-up magic and for smaller audiences than stage magic. It is more intimate than stage magic because it doesn't require expensive, large-scale stage equipment and can thus be performed closer to the audience and without a stage. Many of the tricks performed by platform magicians are sufficiently angle-sensitive as to make them impossible to perform as micromagic. Most working magicians are parlor/platform magicians.
Machpelah Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located within the Cemetery Belt in Glendale, Queens, in the U.S. state of New York. It was established around 1855. In addition to managing the 6-acre (2.4 ha) cemetery, the former Machpelah Cemetery Association also managed the adjacent Union Field Cemetery, New Union Field Cemetery and Hungarian Union Field Cemetery. Machpelah Cemetery was abandoned by the late 1980s. The deteriorating entrance building was demolished in 2013.
Lu "Louis" Chen is a Taiwanese magician and is credited to be the only Taiwanese magician to perform in Hollywood's Magic Castle, commonly referred to as China's most renowned magician. Lu Chen has worked in television industry for over 20 years and has been considered as an iconic magic figure in the Chinese world. His TV shows has been seen by more than a billion viewers in Asia. In 2011 he was awarded “The Magician of The Year” by The Academy of Magician Arts. He graduated from Soochow University with a degree in Japanese literature.
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world.
Richard J. Kaufman is an author, publisher, illustrator, and editor of books and magazines in the field of magic.
John Mulholland was an American magician, author, publisher and intelligence agent.
John van der Put is a magician and comedian from the United Kingdom who performs under the stage name Piff the Magic Dragon. A winner of multiple awards from British magic societies, he toured as a supporting act for Mumford and Sons and has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent. In June 2019, van der Put was named one of Variety's 10 Comics to Watch for 2019. Van der Put lives in Las Vegas and has a residency at The Flamingo.
Daniel and David Buck are American sleight of hand practitioners known for their contributions to the art of cardistry.
The first Reason Rally was a public gathering for secularism and religious skepticism held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2012. The rally was sponsored by major atheistic and secular organizations of the United States and was regarded as a "Woodstock for atheists and skeptics". A second Reason Rally was held on June 4, 2016 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..
