Showing results for "Outlaw" in Historical

Based on a “that can’t actually be true” story, Dead Outlaw is the darkly hilarious and wildly inventive new musical about Elmer McCurdy, an early 20th-century outlaw who became a traveling corpse and accidental celebrity. After a botched train robbery and an untimely death, Elmer’s body embarks on a decades-long postmortem adventure—through carnivals, roadside attractions, wax museums, and even a Hollywood film set. Dead Outlaw dives into the absurdity of fame, the inevitability of failure, and the meaning—or utter meaninglessness—of legacy.

In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other - the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, both personalities fought, lost, and triumphed amid shootouts, train robberies, and bank holdups against the backdrop of the lawless American frontier.

Brilliantly reconstructed from contemporary narratives, The Last Outlaws is both a gripping work of historical true crime and a richly revealing examination of our nation at its birth. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith meets Killing for Country. In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor...

The Life of John Joel Glanton: Texas Ranger, Scalp Hunter, and Outlaw explores the violent and controversial life of one of the most infamous figures of the American frontier. Drawing from primary sources, military records, contemporary newspapers, memoirs, and historical accounts, this book follows Glanton from his early years in South Carolina and Arkansas to his service in the Texas Revolution, the Mexican-American War, and the bloody scalp hunts of northern Mexico.

From Deadwood to Aberdeen, Vermillion to Belle Fourche, the frontier towns of South Dakota were populated by some of the toughest and most dangerous characters in the West. Chief Two Sticks led a starving band of rebels on a desperate path of destruction. Bud Stevens's murder of a cattle king's...

Published just seven weeks after the killing of Jesse James, this volume gives the full particulars of each and every dark and desperate deed in the career of this most noted outlaw of any time or nation! The facts and incidents contained herein were dictated to the author by the bandit's wife and his mother, to ensure that every secret act, every hitherto unknown incident, every crime, and every motive was truthfully disclosed!

Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this “lyrical and deeply researched” (Publishers Weekly) biography that goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides. For more than a century...

Jesse James was a guerrilla during the Civil War, and afterwards set out on a criminal career that lasted more than a decade. This extensive biography discusses every one of the robberies and acts of violence that the legendary outlaw and his gang perpetrated.

Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company's top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854-1894), "A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men." Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw "was one of the worst and most dangerous" because "he never knew what fear was."

In the 1950s, westerns were the most popular form of television drama. Saturday mornings were filled with black and white images of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, and The Cisco Kid. In the evening you had the more adult westerns like Have Gun - Will Travel, Rawhide, and Wanted Dead or Alive. Sprinkled amongst these shows were programs purporting to be about real historic characters, people like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Annie Oakley, and Wild Bill Hickok.

In the span of scarcely more than a half century, the West developed from a handful of scattered fur trapping enterprises, predominantly inhabited by males, to a region full of burgeoning rustic communities. Before the government’s official “closure” of the frontier as a lawless expanse, Western societies were essentially living apart from traditional American rule of law.

Jesse James grew up in Clay County, Missouri, a place where north and south conflicted over the issue of slavery. Tensions grew in the lead-up to the Civil War, and James’ Southern loyalties meant he had to make a decision. When war broke out, Jesse and his brother Frank joined the Confederate guerrillas known as “bushwhackers” alongside other notorious characters like “Bloody Bill”. By the age of 17, Jesse had escaped death twice and gained a reputation as a ruthless killer. 

In 1897 the young Italian peasant Giuseppe Musolino was falsely convicted of a crime and sentenced to 21 years at hard labor. He soon escaped, and began hunting those who had played a role in his false conviction, extracting an ominous and lethal revenge, killing as many as 25 people. For three years he eluded a massive manhunt conducted by hundreds of police and even a full regiment of the Italian army. He soon became a hero to the common people of southern Italy, who risked imprisonment themselves to hide, protect, and sustain him.