Special Guest Blogger: Buffalo Bill Cody

The cowboy is probably the most iconic character in the history of the U.S. Everyone immediately recognises them by their cowboy hats and fancy belt buckles, riding their horses while shooting at each other or, as was more often the case, at Native Americans.
My shows sold the myth of the Wild West to Americans but in reality my shows were about as representative of the real West as Star Trek is about Space travel but it was those shows that created the template for the Western look, including, among other things, the 10-gallon hat which i invented for my performances.
A silly hat, a massive belt buckle and ending each sentence with 'partner' doesn't make you a real cowboy but the look i created survived thanks to people who brought it with them from the East and whose only interaction with the Wild West was my shows they'd seen where where you'd shoot first and then shoot any questions that came later.
The nickname 'Buffalo' came from my time before i began trying to make the wild west romantic, i was charged with providing buffalo meat for the workers employed by Kansas Pacific Railroad and those boys could eat, i shot 4,282 buffalo in a space of 18 months and then i changed jobs and rode for the Pony Express and then i worked as a scout for the US Army under the command of General Custer back in the time when a white man could become a hero for killing Native Americans.
When that ended i began acting in a Wild West Show and then went off to make up my own and took it on tour around the USA and even Europe with many famous figures of the Wild West including Gabriel Dumont, Annie Oakley, Lillian Smith, legendary Sioux leader Sitting Bull, and even well-known frontierswoman Calamity Jane and in a early success for equality, i insisted on equal pay for the men and women who performed in my shows.
We were so successful that when the World's Fair came to Chicago in 1893 and the organisers said they didn't need no stinkin' gun fight show, i went to Chicago anyway and put my show right beside the fair, and it was enormously popular, stealing attention and visitors. Suck on that then.
Despite the fact that i had no real connection to the area, when i died the city of Buffalo, New York used my nickname for their NFL team, the Buffalo Bills, in honour of my contribution to the near extinction of the species, i think the helmets they wore might be a bit tight.