Most of my date tie-ins for this column refer to technological achievements, often of dubious merit. Sometimes I permit myself an occasional personal reference. For a bit of a change I've chosen a rather dubious achievement not particularly related to technology, but definitely related to a personal recollection of my childhood.
It was on October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona, that the infamous "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" took place. Since then it's taken place about ten times in movies, with each generation of film goers gettting a slightly different take on it. John Ford's "My Darling Clementine" is probably the most interesting, and the most poetic, though John Sturges' "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" is probably the best known. Interestingly, Leon Uris was the screen writer for the Sturges film, and it's painfully easy to see how Wyatt Earp who brings law and order to the west transposes into Ari Ben Canaan of Exodus fame who tames the Middle East.
So the gunfight actually occurred, with pretty much the same outcome as that of the films. Victors are, of course, those who write the history, and Wyatt Earp emerged victorious, moved to California, and among other things worked as a consultant on early westerns made in Hollywood. Perhaps that's the reason that although numerous eye-witness accounts accuse Earp of murder in the actual gunfight, in our collective memory, built from hundreds of Saturday matinee hours staring up at the big screen, Earp will forever be the hero who cleaned up the west for family values and progress.
Thanks, Wyatt.