Buffalo Bill

William Frederick Cody was born in Iowa Territory on February 26, 1846, and after his father's death began working at eleven. At fifteen he rode for the Pony Express, then served the Union through the Civil War's final years and later scouted for the Army during the Indian Wars - work that earned him a Medal of Honor in 1872, stripped in 1917, reinstated in 1989. At twenty-three he began performing frontier scenes and cowboy episodes for audiences. In 1883 he founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a sprawling production that toured the United States and, from 1887 onward, Europe, cementing his place as one of the most recognized figures of the American Old West. He died January 10, 1917.