August 17

On the 17th in 1877, Henry McCarty shot F.P. Cahill, a blacksmith living in Arizona. McCarty would achieve fame, or at least notoriety, as Billy the Kid. Cahill would achieve fame as Billy the Kid’s first victim when he died on the 18th. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is not the sort of thing that Warhol had in mind when he pointed out that ‘in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.’