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.

Less than twenty minutes later, she was recovered from the bottom of the falls, bleeding from the head but otherwise uninjured.