Henry McCarty, alias William Bonney, alias "Billy the Kid," is born in New York City

Henry McCarty, the young man who grew up to live, and die, as "Billy the Kid," was born on or about this date in the Irish slums of New York City. His mother took him West, first to Indianapolis and then to New Mexico. A killer of at least four men, he was a popular and charismatic young man, fluent in Spanish, and ripe for exaggeration by others in his role as gunman in the Lincoln County War. The manner of his death, shot at the age of twenty-one, sealed his entry into American folklore. (By John Osborne)