'All hail to the Queen of the Mist'

 On this day in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor ensured her place in the annals of human folly by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It was her 63rd birthday, though she claimed to be 20 years younger, and she entered the barrel – custom-built of oak and iron and padded with a mattress – wearing a flowing black dress and a flowery hat, and carrying her lucky heart-shaped pillow. The barrel was launched into the water near Goat Island on the American side, and was eventually carried over at the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Amazingly, when the barrel was opened Mrs Edson Taylor was found alive, with only a little bruising and a gash on her head. Soon after, she declared that, 'If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat ... I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall.' Which seems reasonable. 
  Annie Edson Taylor, who had fallen on hard times, was hoping that the venture would make her money. She embarked on a speaking tour and wrote a memoir, but her manager ran away with her barrel, and she spent most of her savings hiring private detectives to track it down. After it was eventually found in Chicago, it was stolen again by her next manager. She spent her latter years posing for photographs at her Niagara Falls souvenir stand, while pursuing various other abortive ventures, including trying to write a novel, and working as a clairvoyant. When she died, more or less penniless, her funeral was paid for by public subscription. A sad end, but at least she had won the distinction of being the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive. Her feat was celebrated in several poems, including this effort by one John Joseph O'Regan, with its curious rhyming  – 

'All hail to the Queen of the Mist,
Brave Anna Edson Taylor;
She has beaten all former records,
By her courage, grit and valor.'

and this, by P.M. Reynolds: 

'Since earth’s creation down the stormy way,
All human feats have been surpassed today.
Mrs Edson Taylor, in her barrel sound,
Through the wild rapids did in safety bound.'