Annie Oakley (13 August 1860 – 3 November 1926) née Phoebe Ann Moses in Darke County, Ohio, was a United States sharpshooter in the American West.

Biography

Born on the Ohio frontier, Oakley began hunting at the age of nine to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She soon became known as a marksman. After defeating a sideshow marksman named Frank Butler in 1880, she married him and became his assistant in his travelling show.

They joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in 1885, and she was advertised as "Little Miss Sure Shot", a nickname given to her by Sitting Bull. Oakley had such good aim that she knocked the ashes off a cigarette in the mouth of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

In 1901, she was badly injured in a railway crash, but recovered and resumed her career. The musical Annie Get Your Gun, is loosely based on the life of Oakley. From 1954 to 1956, Gail Davis played her in the "Annie Oakley television series.

See also

• Calamity Jane
• Belle Starr

External link

• Annie Oakley links
• Annie Oakley biography (Women in History)