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Thursday, April 25, 2013

REFER TO THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE.

Annie Oakley, an intriguing figure in American entertainment, was a markswoman who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, where she was often called “Little Sure Shot.” She was born in 1860 in Darke County, Ohio, and her original name was Phoebe Ann Moses. As a child, she hunted game with such success that, according to legend, by selling it in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was able to pay off the mortgage on the family farm. When she was 15 she won a shooting match in Cincinnati with Frank E. Butler, a vaudeville marks- man, and they were married a year later. For the next ten years they toured the country and performed in theaters and circuses as “Butler and Oakley.” In April
1885, Annie Oakley, now under her husband’s management, joined “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show. Billed as
“Miss Annie Oakley, the Peerless Lady Wing-Shot,” she was one of the show’s star attractions for sixteen years. Oakley never failed to delight her audi- ences, and her feats of marksmanship were truly incredible. At 30 paces she could split a playing card held edge-on, and she hit dimes tossed into the air. She shot cigarettes from her husband’s lips, and, when he threw a playing card into the air, she would shoot it full of holes before it touched the ground. She was a great success on the Wild West Show’s European trips.
In 1887, she was presented to Queen
Victoria, and later in Berlin she per- formed her cigarette trick with, at his insistence, Crown Prince Wilhelm (later Kaiser Wilhelm II) holding the ciga- rette. A train wreck in 1901 left her partially paralyzed for a time, but she recovered and returned to the stage to amaze audiences for many more years.





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