Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
A Milestone Documents E-text
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Abstract

William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born on February 26, 1846, and died January 10, 1917. In many respects he was equal parts early western frontiersman and modern-day entertainment impresario. At the age of twenty-six he received the Medal of Honor for service in the U.S. army as a scout. As the twentieth century opened, Buffalo Bill, who was by then well into his fifties, was a touring global celebrity as recognizable and sought after as the American writer Mark Twain and the English author Charles Dickens—both of whom similarly toured, traveled, and promoted themselves as show business entrepreneurs. Cody earned the soubriquet “Buffalo Bill” by slaughtering more than four thousand bison during a period of eighteen months in 1867–1868.

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