Despite its reputation, the Wild West was nowhere near as wild as it's cracked up to be. Statistically speaking, it was more peaceful than some major cities today. The image of the West we get from movies like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and video games like Red Dead Redemption is a sensationalized version of the American frontier. For a more accurate version of the time period, you're better off reading Willa Cather's Prarie Trilogy.
But the West wasn't without its risks. Outlaws still looted trains and lawmen still cornered cowboys on the run. While danger wasn't as widespread as we're led to believe, it sure was intense. Quick-draw duels, rattlesnake bites, disease, and the elements all conspired to make the West a tough place to survive. Even sex in the Old West could be precarious.
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#wildwest #death #weirdhistory
The Oregon Trail made me believe everyone died from dysentery 😂
Or Cholera LOL
Some of us made it all the way to the West Coast, like my ancestors.
@@seantlewis376Ong
The Red Dead Redemption Series does a phenomenal job of portraying The Wild West
Good to have this narrator back
My immediate thought too.
My Dad loved all of that Western stuff. We watched every wild west type TV show we could fit in without time conflicts. Dad was a kid who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in the 1920s and 30s, and saw the hell of death in that Iwo Jima thing. It was a normal part of his environment. He had an LP record of cowboy songs that he would play sometimes on the weekends. His favorite song was "Blood On The Saddle." R I.P., Dad, hope to see you where there's no more pain....
*ChiLd Abuse!!!!* *DAD? ShouLd have Spent to Evenings HeLping You with Your HomeWork!!!!*
This video doesn’t even mention workplace deaths. The 2 most common jobs in the old west were miners and cowboys and both jobs were dangerous. Mines collapsing or exploding killed miners all the time and lung ailments were also common among miners. Cowboys worked outside and were at the mercy of the elements. They also risked injury or death dodging stampedes, dealing with uncooperative cows or bulls, or if their horse took a step in a gopher hole.
Deadwood's portrayal of Calamity Jane was 10 out of 10.
LOVED that character!
"Be fucked!" Eloquent in its brevity.
@@MegaKat 💯😆
Lol, that's exactly when we started playing Oregon Trail was third grade. I think on Apple II Green screens. Then we got one in color! About 1988 😂
Lol we are around the same age and I loved that game. Our school had one computer room and each class was able to reserve the room for 1 hour each week, lol. There was only 2 games available Oregon Trail and Numbers Cruncher. Out of the two, Oregon Trail was more dynamic. I remember my young mind being stressed out back then that my whole family kept dying before I was even halfway there 😅😂😅
@@ToyasTales 🤣
My Grandmother and Greats traveled the Oregon Trail in 1914. My grandmother was 7. They lost 4 of her younger siblings. They started with 13 kids. Back then you had to have a lot of children so your bloodline would survive. When my grandmother passed at 86 years old in Eagle Point, Oregon they wrote an article about her contributing 99 descendants into Oregon in her lifetime. She experienced the Oregon Trail IRL.
Eagle Point? It's likely that we are distant cousins. My family's been in Oregon -- mostly Southern Oregon -- since the 1840s.
*Bad Things OnLy HaPPen to those who have ReJected the Lord Jesus!!!!* *Look at Me, No Bad Things Ever HaPPens to Me!!! NOW Look at You!!!!*
You sure about that year? My grandfather travelled down the coast to San Francisco from Vancouver Canada building houses only 20 years after that and I'm pretty sure he was well after the Oregon trail was used although he did grow up with horse and buggy. This is from a 10 second google search: The Trail was in regular use from 1843 until the 1870s. When the Union Pacific completed the first railroad link to the West Coast in 1869, the preferred route became by train to San Francisco, then north to Oregon by ship, but wagon trains could still be seen on the Oregon Trail as late as the 1880s
TB and Lumbago
I can’t help, i got lumbago
He was a good man Arthur Morgan a good man
For whatever reason, the subtitles keep labelling "Hickock" as "Hitchcock" and the thought of ol' Alfred hanging out in the Wild West making scary movies is giving me giggles.
They also called him a Cowboy. Hickok was Not a Cowboy ever. He was a buffalo hunter, a pistoleer, a policeman, a sheriff. Not a Cowboy.
I swear this was covered in "Blazing Saddles".
"Me Mongo. Me sad."
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is my favorite movie and I never see it mentioned anywhere. Nice to see it have a lil moment 😊
This narrator is equivalent of the Paul Harvey of You Tube...
Measles, mumps, rubella, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, polio, tuberculosis, "consumption", etc - the list of childhood diseases the young didn't survive, frequently taking siblings and elders with them, means most of us would never have seen adolescence; just names and brief dates on a stone is all we'd be. Those that did survive were usually afflicted with impaired eyesight to blindness, impaired hearing to deafness, degenerative heart and muscles issues that gave out within 10 years, or you could succumbed to influenza, pneumonia or other common infections long before antibiotics were invented. Strep and Staph was around to thin the population as well. The spread of these diseases seemed to be more common in the cities because the statistics were / are available whereas in the Territories, such statistics weren't kept until towns grew large enough to have a doctor and a court house, never mind a state house to send records. Ghost towns were not always the result of boom to bust, they were all too frequently the result of disease and contaminated wells.
I kept waiting for death by childbirth
Oh but 'women's problems' are only a side note to another man's story
@@cassieoz1702ofc u made this type of comment 💀
*Bad Things OnLy HaPPen to those who have ReJected the Lord Jesus!!!!* *Look at Me, No Bad Things Ever HaPPens to Me!!! NOW Look at You!!!!*
I don't see Skippy Clanton as a coward, I see him as the only smart one of that bunch!
7:05 The writer Willa Cather eventually moved to the settlement of Red Cloud, Nebraska. Her book My Antonia (1918) is the considered to the top novel about Nebraska. I share a birthday with her (December 7th).
I'm not quite interested with Wild West stories but you got me pretty hooked with this one, Tom.
We don’t know how Black Bart died, so therefore he might still be alive.
With Elvis, and Nixon and Tupac 😂
Like Enoch and Elijah.
Me? Oh, I'd die doing my damndest to make Yosemite Sam an actual historical figure.
Yeah but you know Dysentery is a real threat to anyone
Weird History is the only "hit subscribe, and give us a like" spiel that I don't skip past on KZhead because Tom has such a captivating voice.
I would have probably died during childbirth and taken my mother with me.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Bill Hickok's hand of cards that has now become infamous as "The dead Man's Hand" - a two-pair poker hand consisting of the black aces and black eights.
0:40 The three-way showdown in the film The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) is incredible, legendary filmmaking! I share a birthday with Eli Wallach, he plays Tuco Ramirez (AKA The Ugly) in the film.
I'm reminded of "Lonesome Dove". There was the scene where the water moccassins bit the cowboy trying to cross a river;Jake Spoon was lynched for associating with horse theives and Deets winding up on a Lakota Souix's spear. Also in the classic John Wayne western "Red River" there's a scene where a cowboy trying to sneak a bite from the chuck wagon thereby causing a stampede killing one of the cowboys.😮😢
There is nothing “fuzzy” about who shot first. Han was the only person who shot anyone at that table that day.
Here we go again
I enjoyed the humor interjected into these famous stories.
You didn’t mention the most unlucky outlaw, McCready, who was embalmed and sold to a circus.
My favorite history man behind the history guy!
How would I die in the Wild West? I've spent my whole life roughly a half hour drive from the Oregon Trail. So probably dysentery, of course.
*Bad Things OnLy HaPPen to those who have ReJected the Lord Jesus!!!!* *Look at Me, No Bad Things Ever HaPPens to Me!!! NOW Look at You!!!!*
Seth McFarlane did a movie named a million ways to die in the west
Don't cross Charlize Theron. Okay, why would you do that anyway?
More Timeline please 😢
By lead poisoning...🤔
Had an allergic reaction to some fruit around age 5. Would have killed me in the wild west for sure. Cool vid WH!!
Beware, beware the prickly pear.
Thanks for this! 🤠 My mother and I have had this conversation. She and I are both certain we'd die and die quickly in the olden days
It was actually wilder than people make it look and I hate how everyone tries to downplay it. There was literally no laws back then and people were quick draw dueling on a daily basis
That was somewhat true during one of the many gold rushes through the late 1800s and early 1900s, but not in actual western settlements.
3:00 Bill Pickett was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1989 for Steer Wrestling. The Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame opened in 1979.
0:32 The film The Great Train Robbery (1903)! That is a close-up of Barnes. I have a friend with that family name, he was also a previous duplexmate of mine.
1:25 When I lived in Arizona, I once took a detour day from work and drove to Tombstone and then to the border. It was really cool to walking through the streets of Tombstone!
Dysentery
That would be me as well.
Same ...
keep up the good work great vid man
"I know we think we would've been the ones that survived..." Oh hell no, I'm pretty sure i would be dead within a week.
*Bad Things OnLy HaPPen to those who have ReJected the Lord Jesus!!!!* *Look at Me, No Bad Things Ever HaPPens to Me!!! NOW Look at You!!!!*
Cholera on the trail was notable in 1852. By 1873 they had a railroad that would take them to a branch of the trail far, far out west. You did a nice job though. I see that Critical Mass . . .claims a 1914 journey, though. Oh well.
That's the sound we came for. As of now not one comment complaining about the narration.
A+ video! LOVE IT! It's a Wild West classic!
You forgot to mention that Ketchum had also lost his arm due to an infection so he wasn't balanced properly when he dropped.
Well done. Interesting way to explore history...
SHANE! COME BAAAAAAACK!
Sorry, but your whole party died of dysentery.
Attacked by a band of wild Apaches.
The best KZhead channel for some good history.
HBO Deadwood series was bar far the best show ever made! It was mostly accurate and realistic
Wow very interesting!
8:40 My friend and I once were stranded in Saint Joseph after my car broke down. We waited a long time before snagging a Greyhound bus. Saint Joseph is also the birthplace of Eminem.
You might have done this already but, could you talk the guns law in the west, they were very strict even today’s standards. Maybe even more so.
I have four autoimmune diseases, one being a seizure disorder, I would've been dead so fast lol
I have two. We'd be dead four and two times over, respectively.
oh yeah. Longest coma was 4 days and I got a brain sample taken and they found my 4th disease, and I just got an implant for my seizures so really good. I've had 7, I would've been dead after the first. @@Andrea.S.Alvey12
@@Andrea.S.Alvey12 *Bad Things OnLy HaPPen to those who have ReJected the Lord Jesus!!!!* *Look at Me, No Bad Things Ever HaPPens to Me!!! NOW Look at You!!!!*
@@Andrea.S.Alvey12 they'd freak out and think I'm a witch when I start seizing
Would like to see another video explaining the life of bounty hunters in the wild west.
10:08 May 13th is the day I graduated from junior high! My junior high is in Garfield County, which was platted in 1884.
I wonder how many people in the Wild West died from exposure to extreme temperatures. Surely not just anyone could have been adequately prepared for a Montana winter, especially in the days before central heating. If you live in the north-central United States today and occasionally deal with -20 temperatures, doesn't it ever make you wonder how Lewis and Clark managed?
The ONLY WH narrator….👏👏👍
Black Bart totally had a hidden stash, got it, became a new person, and lived his life comfortably in like Canada or Mexico! 😂
I really like this video
great prodcutction!
Black Bart was notorious in the area I live now. He only robbed Western Union stage coaches as a revolt against the company after he was fired from one in Idaho. He never robbed individuals or non-Western Union coaches. He moved to northern California/southern Oregon area and "lived" (loose term) in the town of Etna. He would rob the stage coaches traveling between northern California and Oregon.
When Black Bart was arrested they found the shotgun he used to hold up stagecoaches was never actually loaded.
10:36 A former girlfriend of mine majored in English with the specialty of poety at the University of Nebraska. That was during the time when the Poet Laureate of the United States, Ted Kooser, was there.
There were only three known High Noon/Gunsmoke/Big Iron style shootouts. #1:Wild Bill Hicock and Dave Tutt. Springfield,Missouri #2:Longhaired Bill Courtright and Luke Short. Fort Worth,Texas. #3:Texas Ranger Bill McDonald and the Hardeman County Sherriff. Quanah,Texas. Both Wild Bill Hicock and John Wesley Hardin were both murdered while gambling.😮😅
Getting killed by being kicked in the head by a horse didn't just happen in the Old West. It happened to my wife's grandfather on a Nebraska farm in the 1940s.
You should do a video on the lady who told us we reached a wrong number. I think everyone from 80 years back would want to know who the heck that was.
My favorite narrator! 🤟🏻❤️
Love this narrator
I would have died 10 years ago from cancer. Penicillin wouldn't even be discovered for another 30 years. Assuming I would have lived long enough to get cancer in the first place, of course. 😁
The Old West had no wifi and no KZhead. I'd have died of boredom.
I already know how I'd kick the bucket in the wild west; I'd be betrayed by a drunken, syphilitic buffalo that I'd just beaten in a card game. Nine times out of ten, that's how it would end. Unless I got on the bad side of a raccoon with cholera AND dysentery. That's almost as dangerous.
2:00 They should sell O.K. Soda in Tombstone. O.K. Soda is a 90s Throwback.
That stuff was so good! I kept a can for several years. Finally opened it. Yeah, soda definitely has a shelf life haha.
@@jasondashney I have never tried it before, I how it comes back!
awwww thats the voice !
either on the trail of tears or starved in a residential school forced to pray 😂
A snakebite would have been a painful wild west way to go. A train accident, steamboat explosion or sinking would have not been pleasant, either.
Eating ANOTHER Weird History meal! Eating POP-TARTS* (Frosted Cookies & Crème)...while watching this Weird History video! * From the thumbnail of the Weird History Food video "What Was the Most Popular Junk Food From Every Decade In the 20th Century?" and on the video "Facts About 80s Snacks"
Comanches and Apaches were hard on folks too😳🥸
I am going to watch the videos: x What It Was Like Going To A Doctor In Wild West (1st Recommendation) x What Life Was Really Like As A Wild West Sheriff (2nd Recommendation, second time watching) x What It Was Like to Be a Wild West Cowboy x What Was Hygiene Like In The Wild West?
Made me remember how 'A million ways to Die in the West' was so disappointing. Thought it was going to be interesting and funny story vignettes about ways to die in the old West, but instead it was just a generic and lame movie.
4:54 Reminds me of inserting catheters, patients often go insane when they are receiving one.
Wtf "inserting a metal wire into his urethra" I almost puked after that, can't even imagine that
Until penicillin was invented there wasn’t much doctors could do for STD’s
I would be upset that there were no splatoon video games or no nintendo switch even though we can live without electronics for awhile to be honest.
Imagine being a cowboy in the Wild West and dying from a case of Wyatt Earp 😂
You forgot one of the worst causes of death in the Old West… LUMBAGO!
I'm a decendant of Black Bart. We spell the sir name Bolles with 2 Ls but we are related to him, Thanks for the mention.
I kept expecting mention of tuberculosis, as common as diphtheria in the 19th century.
ARTHUR!!
What are the background songs names in this video?
Hyperglycemia would have killed me probably around age 15
My appendix would've carried me off at six. Of my three brothers, only one would've made it past his teens without modern medicine.
My appendix would've killed me
According to the Oregon Trail Dysentery
So basically some things never change
Pretty weird, from California 😊😊
Disentery
Seth McFarlane already explained it in his comedy movie about the Wild West...
People die at the fair
@@marshmangunnar9150 xD
You know, some guy smiled once when getting his picture taken...
@@mirthenarywhat kind of psychotpath does that?
This comment section is about to rule here haha
I don’t have to read this because as a woman I know there were very specific things that would have killed me
Dysentery… if the Oregon Trail is to be believed.