Destiny Hope Cyrus is 18 today. You can call her Miley — or Hannah Montana.
Bruce Hornsby is 56.
Henry McCarty was — possibly — born in New York City on November 23, 1859. With his mother and brother he moved west — Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico. Mrs. McCarty married a man named William Antrim in Santa Fe. After she died in Silver City in 1874, the boy got into minor trouble, escaped jail to Arizona Territory, and used the name William Antrim. His size and age led to “Kid” or “Kid” Antrim. Arrested for shooting and killing a blacksmith who was beating him in 1877, the Kid escaped back to New Mexico and assumed the name William H. Bonney.
As far as his actual crimes went, there wasn’t much to make Billy the Kid stand out from other outlaws of his day. But he has endured as a mythical figure, partly because The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid made him famous, and partly because he was such a memorable personality. He charmed just about everyone — Frank Coe, who joined in the Lincoln County feud but was generally a respectable citizen, described the young outlaw: “He was about seventeen, 5ft 8in, weight 138lbs and stood straight as an Indian, fine looking lad as ever I met. He was a lady’s man and the Mexican girls were all crazy about him. He spoke their language well. He was a fine dancer, could go all their gaits and was one of them. He was a wonder, you would have been proud to know him.”
Last summer, New Mexico’s outgoing Governor, Bill Richardson, announced that he was considering a posthumous pardon for Billy the Kid, in light of a promised pardon during the Kid’s lifetime by then-governor Lew Wallace, which Wallace did not follow through on. The descendents of Pat Garrett, the sheriff who shot Billy the Kid, protested in honor of their relative.