How did Wild Wild Bill Hickok Die?

Answer 1

He was shot in the back of the head with a .45-caliber revolver by Jack McCall. Legend has it that Hickok was playing Poker when he was shot, was holding a pair of aces, a pair of eights, and a queen. The fifth card is debated, or, as some say, had not yet been dealt. "Aces and eights" thus is known as the "Dead Man's Hand".

According to James Mic Regan, author of the newly released book, Wild Bill Hickok and the Wrath of the Dead Rabbits (Signalman Publishing, ISBN: 978-1935991328), Wild Bill Hickok was killed on August 2, 1876 while playing poker in the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota). The killing allegedly was in revenge of Wild Bill's earlier shooting of a member of an Irish-American gang. Jack McCall was the scapegoat and was not actually the killer. At first, he was found innocent at trial, but when he backtracked on the prior "deal" with the gang, he was taken to trial again, found guilty and hanged.

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