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Wild Bill Hickok

James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in many famous gunfights. He earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales he told about himself. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation.

Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie". Drawn to this criminal lifestyle, he headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler. He was involved in several notable shootouts during the course of his life.

In 1876, Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards that he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs; black aces and eights.

Hickok remains a popular figure of frontier history. Many historic sites and monuments commemorate his life, and he has been depicted numerous times in literature, film, and television. He is chiefly portrayed as a protagonist, although historical accounts of his actions are often controversial, and much of his career is known to have been exaggerated both by himself and by contemporary mythmakers. While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, his career as a gunfighter only lasted from 1861 to 1871. Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights, according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok's biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill.

Early life
James Butler Hickok was born May 27, 1837, in Homer, Illinois, (present-day Troy Grove, Illinois) to William Alonzo Hickok (1801 – 1852), a farmer and abolitionist, and his wife, Pamelia Hickok (née Butler; 1804 – 1878). Hickok was of English ancestry. James was the fourth of six children. His father was said to have used the family house, now demolished, as a station on the Underground Railroad. William Hickok died in 1852, when James was 15.

Hickok was a good shot from a young age, and was recognized locally as an outstanding marksman with a pistol. Photographs of Hickok appear to depict dark hair, but all contemporaneous descriptions affirm that it was red.

In 1855, at age 18, James Hickok fled Illinois following a fight with Charles Hudson, during which both fell into a canal; each thought, mistakenly, that he had killed the other. Hickok moved to Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory, where he joined Jim Lane's Free State Army (also known as the Jayhawkers), an antislavery vigilante group active in the new territory during the Bleeding Kansas era. While a Jayhawker, he met 12-year-old William Cody (later known as "Buffalo Bill"), who, despite his youth, served as a scout just two years later for the U.S. Army during the Utah War.

Nicknames
Hickok used his late father's name, William Hickok, from 1858, and the name William Haycock during the American Civil War. Most newspapers referred to him as William Haycock until 1869. He was arrested while using the name Haycock in 1865. He afterward resumed using his given name, James Hickok. Military records after 1865 list him as Hickok, but he was also known as Haycock. In an 1867 article about his shootout with Davis Tutt, his surname was misspelled as Hitchcock.

While in Nebraska, Hickok was derisively referred to by one man as "Duck Bill" for his long nose and protruding lips. He was also known before 1861 among Jayhawkers as "Shanghai Bill" because of his height and slim build. He grew a moustache following the McCanles incident, and in 1861 began calling himself "Wild Bill".

Early career
In 1857, Hickok claimed a 160 acre tract in Johnson County, Kansas, near present-day Lenexa. On March 22, 1858, he was elected one of the first four constables of Monticello Township. In 1859, he joined the Russell, Majors and Waddell freight company, the parent company of the Pony Express.

In 1860, Hickok was badly injured by a bear, while driving a freight team from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. According to Hickok's account, he found the road blocked by a cinnamon bear and its two cubs. Dismounting, he approached the bear and fired a shot into its head, but the bullet ricocheted off its skull, infuriating it. The bear attacked, crushing Hickok with its body. Hickok managed to fire another shot, wounding the bear's paw. The bear then grabbed his arm in its mouth, but Hickok was able to grab his knife and slash its throat, killing it.

Hickok was severely injured, with a crushed chest, shoulder, and arm. He was bedridden for four months before being sent to Rock Creek Station in the Nebraska Territory to work as a stable hand while he recovered. There, the freight company had built a stagecoach stop along the Oregon Trail near Fairbury, Nebraska, on land purchased from David McCanles.

McCanles shooting
On July 12, 1861, David McCanles went to the Rock Creek Station office to demand an overdue property payment from Horace Wellman, the station manager. McCanles reportedly threatened Wellman, and either Wellman or Hickok, who was hiding behind a curtain, killed McCanles. Hickok, Wellman, and another employee, J.W. Brink, were tried for killing McCanles, but were found to have acted in self-defense. McCanles may have been the first man Hickok killed. Hickok subsequently visited McCanles' widow, apologized for the killing, and offered her $35 in restitution, all the money he had with him at the time.

Civil War service
After the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Hickok became a teamster for the Union Army in Sedalia, Missouri. By the end of 1861, he was a wagon master, but in September 1862, he was discharged for unknown reasons. He then joined General James Henry Lane's Kansas Brigade, and while serving with the brigade, saw his friend Buffalo Bill Cody, who was serving as a scout.

In late 1863, Hickok worked for the provost marshal of southwest Missouri as a member of the Springfield detective police. His work included identifying and counting the number of troops in uniform who were drinking while on duty, verifying hotel liquor licenses, and tracking down individuals who owed money to the cash-strapped Union Army.

Buffalo Bill claimed that he encountered Hickok disguised as a Confederate officer in Missouri in 1864. Hickok had not been paid for some time, and was hired as a scout by General John B. Sanborn by early 1865. In June, Hickok mustered out and went to Springfield, where he gambled. The 1883 History of Greene County, Missouri described him as "by nature a ruffian ... a drunken, swaggering fellow, who delighted when 'on a spree' to frighten nervous men and timid women."

Duel with Davis Tutt
While in Springfield, Hickok and a local gambler named Davis Tutt had several disagreements over unpaid gambling debts and their common affection for the same women. Hickok lost a gold watch to Tutt in a poker game. The watch had great sentimental value to Hickok, so he asked Tutt not to wear it in public. They initially agreed not to fight over the watch, but when Hickok saw Tutt wearing it, he warned him to stay away. On July 21, 1865, the two men faced off in Springfield's town square, standing sideways before drawing and firing their weapons. Their quick-draw duel was recorded as the first of its kind. Tutt's shot missed, but Hickok's struck Tutt through the heart from about 75 yd away. Tutt called out, "Boys, I'm killed", before he collapsed and died.

Two days later, Hickok was arrested for murder. The charge was later reduced to manslaughter. He was released on $2,000 bail and stood trial on August 3, 1865. At the end of the trial, Judge Sempronius H. Boyd told the jury they could not find that Hickok acted in self-defense if he could have reasonably avoided the fight. However, if they felt the threat of danger was real and imminent, he instructed that they could apply the unwritten law of the "fair fight" and acquit. The jury voted to clear Hickok, resulting in public backlash and criticism of the verdict.

Several weeks later, an interview Hickok gave to Colonel George Ward Nichols, a journalist who subsequently became known as the creator of the Hickok legend, was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Under the name "Wild Bill Hitchcock" [sic], the article recounted the "hundreds" of men whom Hickok had personally killed and other exaggerated exploits. The article was controversial wherever Hickok was known, and several frontier newspapers wrote rebuttals.

Deputy U.S. marshal in Kansas
In September 1865, Hickok came in second in the election for city marshal of Springfield. Leaving Springfield, he was recommended for the position of deputy federal marshal at Fort Riley, Kansas. This was during the Indian Wars, in which Hickok sometimes served as a scout for General George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry.

Henry M. Stanley, of the Weekly Missouri Democrat, reported Hickok to be "an inveterate hater of Indian People", perhaps to enhance his reputation as a scout and American fighter. But separating fact from fiction is difficult considering his recruitment of Indians to cross the nation to appear in his own Wild West show. Witnesses confirm that while working as a scout at Fort Harker, Kansas, on May 11, 1867, Hickok was attacked by a large group of Indians, who fled after he shot and killed two. In July, Hickok told a newspaper reporter that he had led several soldiers in pursuit of Indians who had killed four men near the fort on July 2. He reported returning with five prisoners after killing 10. Witnesses confirm that the story was true to the extent the party had set out to find whoever had killed the four men, but the group returned to the fort "without nary a dead Indian, [never] even seeing a live one".

In December 1867, newspapers reported that Hickok had come to stay in Hays City, Kansas. He became a deputy U.S. marshal, and on March 28, 1868, he picked up 11 Union Army deserters who had been charged with stealing government property. Hickok was assigned to bring the men to Topeka for trial, and he requested a military escort from Fort Hays. He was assigned Buffalo Bill Cody, a sergeant, and five privates. They arrived in Topeka on April 2. Hickok remained in Hays through August 1868, when he brought 200 Cheyenne Indians to Hays to be viewed by "excursionists".

On September 1, 1868, Hickok was in Lincoln County, Kansas, where he was hired as a scout by the 10th Cavalry Regiment, a segregated African-American unit. On September 4, Hickok was wounded in the foot while rescuing several cattlemen in the Bijou Creek basin who had been surrounded by Indians. The 10th Regiment arrived at Fort Lyon in Colorado in October and remained there for the rest of 1868.

Marshal of Hays, Kansas
In July 1869, Hickok returned to Hays and was elected city marshal of Hays and sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, in a special election held on August 23, 1869. Three sheriffs had quit during the previous 18 months. Hickok may have been acting sheriff before he was elected; a newspaper reported that he arrested offenders on August 18, and the commander of Fort Hays wrote a letter to the assistant adjutant general on August 21 in which he praised Hickok for his work in apprehending deserters.

The regular county election was held on November 2, 1869. Hickok ran as an Independent; but lost to his deputy, Peter Lanihan, who ran as a Democrat. Hickok and Lanihan, however, remained sheriff and deputy, respectively. Hickok accused a J.V. Macintosh of irregularities and misconduct during the election. On December 9, Hickok and Lanihan both served legal papers on Macintosh, and local newspapers acknowledged that Hickok had guardianship of Hays City.

Killings as sheriff
In September 1869, his first month as sheriff, Hickok killed two men. The first was Bill Mulvey, who was galloping through town on a rampage, drunk, shooting out mirrors and whisky bottles behind bars. Citizens warned Mulvey to behave, because Hickok was sheriff. Mulvey angrily declared that he had come to town to kill Hickok. When he saw Hickok, he leveled his cocked rifle at him. Hickok waved his hand past Mulvey at some supposed onlookers and yelled, "Don't shoot him in the back; he is drunk." Mulvey wheeled his horse around to face those who might shoot him from behind, and before he realized he had been fooled, Hickok shot him through the temple.

The second man killed by Hickok was Samuel Strawhun, a cowboy, who was causing a disturbance in a saloon at 1:00 am on September 27, when Hickok and Lanihan went to the scene. Strawhun "made remarks against Hickok", and Hickok killed him with a shot through the head. Hickok said he had "tried to restore order". At the coroner's inquest into Strawhun's death, despite "very contradictory" evidence from witnesses, the jury found the shooting justifiable.

On July 17, 1870, Hickok was attacked by two troopers from the 7th U.S. Cavalry, Jeremiah Lonergan and John Kyle (sometimes spelled Kile), in a saloon. Lonergan pinned Hickok to the ground, and Kyle put his gun to Hickok's ear. When Kyle's weapon misfired, Hickok shot Lonergan, wounding him in the knee, and shot Kyle twice, killing him. Hickok again lost his re-election bid to his deputy.

Marshal of Abilene, Kansas

On April 15, 1871, Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas. He replaced Tom "Bear River" Smith, who had been killed while serving an arrest warrant on November 2, 1870. Outlaw John Wesley Hardin arrived in Abilene at the end of a cattle drive in early 1871. Hardin was a well-known gunfighter, and is known to have killed more than 27 men. In his 1895 autobiography, published after his death, Hardin claimed to have been befriended by Hickok, the newly elected town marshal, after he had disarmed the marshal using the road agent's spin, but Hardin was known to exaggerate. In any case, Hardin appeared to have thought highly of Hickok.

Hickok later said he did not know that "Wesley Clemmons" was Hardin's alias, nor that he was a wanted outlaw. He told Clemmons (Hardin) to stay out of trouble in Abilene and asked him to hand over his guns, and Hardin complied. Hardin alleged that when his cousin, Mannen Clements, was jailed for the killing of two cowhands (Joe and Dolph Shadden) in July 1871, Hickok—at Hardin's request—arranged for his escape.

In August 1871, Hickok sought to arrest Hardin for killing Charles Couger in an Abilene hotel "for snoring too loud". Hardin left Kansas before Hickok could arrest him. A newspaper reported, "A man was killed in his bed at a hotel in Abilene, Monday night, by a desperado called 'Arkansas'. The murderer escaped. This was his sixth murder."

Shootout with Phil Coe
Hickok and Phil Coe, a saloon owner and acquaintance of Hardin's, had a dispute that resulted in a shootout. The Bull's Head Saloon in Abilene had been established by gambler Ben Thompson and Coe, his partner, businessman, and fellow gambler. The two entrepreneurs had painted a picture of a bull with a large erect penis on the side of their establishment as an advertisement. Citizens of the town complained to Hickok, who requested that Thompson and Coe remove the image. They refused, so Hickok altered it himself. Infuriated, Thompson tried to incite John Wesley Hardin to kill Hickok by exclaiming to Hardin that "He's a damn Yankee. Picks on rebels, especially Texans, to kill." Hardin was in town under his assumed name Wesley Clemmons, but was better known to the townspeople by the alias "Little Arkansas". He seemed to have respect for Hickok's abilities and replied, "If Bill needs killing, why don't you kill him yourself?" Hoping to intimidate Hickok, Coe allegedly stated that he could "kill a crow on the wing". Hickok's retort is one of the West's most famous sayings (though possibly apocryphal): "Did the crow have a pistol? Was he shooting back? I will be."

On October 5, 1871, Hickok was standing off a crowd during a street brawl when Coe fired two shots. Hickok ordered him to be arrested for firing a pistol within the city limits. Coe claimed that he was shooting at a stray dog, and then suddenly turned his gun on Hickok, who fired first and killed Coe. In another account of the Coe shootout: Theophilus Little, the mayor of Abilene and owner of the town's lumber yard, recorded his time in Abilene by writing in a notebook, which was ultimately given to the Abilene Historical Society. Writing in 1911, he detailed his admiration for Hickok and included a paragraph on the shooting that differs considerably from the reported account:

"'Phil' Coe was from Texas, ran the 'Bull's Head' a saloon and gambling den, sold whiskey and men's souls. As vile a character as I ever met for some cause Wild Bill incurred Coe's hatred and he vowed to secure the death of the marshal. Not having the courage to do it himself, he one day filled about 200 cowboys with whiskey intending to get them into trouble with Wild Bill, hoping that they would get to shooting and in the melee shoot the marshal. But Coe 'reckoned without his host'. Wild Bill had learned of the scheme and cornered Coe, had his two pistols drawn on Coe. Just as he pulled the trigger, one of the policemen rushed around the corner between Coe and the pistols and both balls entered his body, killing him instantly. In an instant, he pulled the triggers again sending two bullets into Coe's abdomen (Coe lived a day or two) and whirling with his two guns drawn on the drunken crowd of cowboys, 'and now do any of you fellows want the rest of these bullets?' Not a word was uttered."

After shooting Coe, Hickok caught a glimpse of someone running toward him and quickly fired two more shots in reaction, accidentally shooting and killing Abilene Special Deputy Marshal Mike Williams, who was coming to his aid. This was the last time Hickok was ever involved in a gunfight; the accidental death of Deputy Williams was an event that haunted Hickok for the remainder of his life.

Hickok was relieved of his duties as marshal less than two months after the accidental shooting, this incident being only one of a series of questionable shootings and claims of misconduct during his career.

Later life
In 1872, Hickok recruited six Native Americans and three cowboys to accompany him to Niagara Falls, where he put on an outdoor demonstration called The Daring Buffalo Chase of the Plains. Since the event was outdoors, he could not compel people to pay, and the venture was a financial failure. The show featured six buffalo, a bear, and a monkey, and one show ended in disaster when a buffalo refused to act, prompting Hickok to fire a bullet into the sky. This angered the buffalo and panicked audience members, causing the animals to break free of their wire fencing and chase audience members, some of whom were trampled. The incident helped contribute to the overall failure of the show.

In 1873, Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro invited Hickok to join their troupe after their earlier success. Hickok did not enjoy acting, and often hid behind scenery. In one show, he shot the spotlight when it focused on him. He was released from the group after a few months.

Eye trouble
In 1876, Hickok sought treatment from an eye specialist in Kansas City, Missouri. No definitive diagnosis has survived, but speculation ranges from secondary syphilis to glaucoma. Although he was just 39, his marksmanship and health were apparently in decline, and he had been arrested several times for vagrancy, despite earning a good income from gambling and displays of showmanship only a few years earlier.

From 1871 until his death in 1876, Hickok had vision problems. A former cavalryman, J.W. "Doc" Howard, who had known Hickok, stated that Hickok had left Buffalo Bill's Scouts of the Plains exhibition "because the lights affected his eyes, so he had to give it up".

Charles Snyder, the Lucien Howe Librarian of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, said "Granular conjunctivitis, ophthalmia, trachoma—call it what you will—was common on the Western Frontier. Jesse James suffered from it."

Marriage
Hickok met Agnes Thatcher Lake, at the time 45 years old, on July 31, 1871. Lake, a widow and the proprietor of Lake's Hippo-Olympiad circus, arrived in Abilene and went to the office of the town marshal to pay the performance fee. She and the circus departed the next day, but Lake and Hickok continued to correspond. On March 5, 1876, Hickok married Lake in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Hickok left his new bride a few months later, joining Charlie Utter's wagon train to seek his fortune in the gold fields of South Dakota.

Shortly before his death, Hickok wrote a letter to his new wife, which read in part, "Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife—Agnes—and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore."

Martha Jane Cannary, known popularly as Calamity Jane, claimed in her autobiography that she was married to Hickok and had divorced him so he could be free to marry Agnes Lake, but no records that support her account have been found. The two possibly met for the first time after Jane was released from the guardhouse in Fort Laramie and joined the wagon train in which Hickok was traveling. The wagon train arrived in Deadwood in July 1876. Jane confirmed this account in an 1896 newspaper interview, although she claimed she had been hospitalized with illness rather than in the guardhouse.

Death
On August 1, 1876, Hickok was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. When a seat opened up at the table, a drunk man named Jack McCall sat down to play. McCall lost heavily. Hickok encouraged McCall to quit the game until he could cover his losses and offered to give him money for breakfast. Although McCall accepted the money, he was apparently insulted.

The next day, Hickok was playing poker again. He usually sat with his back to a wall so he could see the entrance, but the only seat available when he joined the game was a chair facing away from the door. He twice asked another man at the table, Charles Rich, to change seats with him, but Rich refused. McCall then entered the saloon, walked up behind Hickok, drew his Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army .45-caliber revolver, serial # 2079 as identified by William Massie, the River Boat Captain seated at the table, and shouted, "Damn you! Take that!" before shooting Hickok in the back of the head at point-blank range.

Hickok died instantly. The bullet emerged through his right cheek and struck Massie in the left wrist. Hickok may have told his friend Charlie Utter and others who were traveling with them that he thought he would be killed while in Deadwood.

Hickok was playing five-card stud or five-card draw when he was shot. He was holding two pairs: black aces and black eights (although there is some dispute as to the suit of one of the aces, diamond vs. spade) as his "up cards", which has since become widely known as the "dead man's hand". The identity of the fifth card (his "hole card") is also the subject of debate.

Jack McCall's two trials

McCall's motive for killing Hickok is the subject of speculation, largely concerning McCall's anger at Hickok's having given him money for breakfast the day before, after McCall had lost heavily.

McCall was summoned before an informal "miners' jury" (an ad hoc local group of miners and businessmen). He claimed he was avenging Hickok's earlier slaying of his brother, which may have been true; a man named Lew McCall had indeed been killed by an unknown lawman in Abilene, Kansas, but whether or not the two McCall men were related is unknown. McCall was acquitted of the murder, which prompted editorializing in the Black Hills Pioneer: "Should it ever be our misfortune to kill a man ... we would simply ask that our trial may take place in some of the mining camps of these hills." Calamity Jane is reputed to have led a mob that threatened McCall with lynching, but at the time of Hickok's death, Jane was actually being held by military authorities.

After bragging about killing Hickok, McCall was rearrested. The second trial was not considered double jeopardy because of the irregular jury in the first trial and because Deadwood was at the time in unorganized Indian country. The new trial was held in Yankton, the capital of the Dakota Territory. Hickok's brother, Lorenzo Butler, traveled from Illinois to attend the retrial. McCall was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Leander Richardson, a reporter, interviewed McCall shortly before his execution, and wrote an article about him for the April 1877 issue of Scribner's Monthly. Lorenzo Butler Hickok spoke with McCall after the trial, and said McCall showed no remorse.

"As I write the closing lines of this brief sketch, word reaches me that the slayer of Wild Bill has been rearrested by the United States authorities, and after trial has been sentenced to death for willful murder. He is now at Yankton, D.T. awaiting execution. At the [second] trial it was suggested that [McCall] was hired to do his work by gamblers who feared the time when better citizens should appoint Bill the champion of law and order – a post which he formerly sustained in Kansas border life, with credit to his manhood and his courage."

Jack McCall was hanged on March 1, 1877, and buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery. The cemetery was moved in 1881, and when McCall's body was exhumed, the noose was found still around his neck.

Burial
Charlie Utter, Hickok's friend and companion, claimed Hickok's body and placed a notice in the local newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, which read: "Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol shot, J. B. Hickock [sic] (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon, August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock P. M. All are respectfully invited to attend."

Almost the entire town attended the funeral, and Utter had Hickok buried with a wooden grave marker reading: "Wild Bill, J. B. Hickock [sic] killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter."

Hickok is known to have fatally shot six men and is suspected of having killed a seventh (McCanles). Despite his reputation, Hickok was buried in the Ingelside Cemetery, Deadwood's original graveyard. This cemetery filled quickly, and in 1879, on the third anniversary of Hickok's original burial, Utter paid to move Hickok's remains to the new Mount Moriah Cemetery. Utter supervised the move and noted that, while perfectly preserved, Hickok had been imperfectly embalmed. As a result, calcium carbonate from the surrounding soil had replaced the flesh, leading to petrifaction. One of the workers, Joseph McLintock, wrote a detailed description of the reinterment. McLintock used a cane to tap the body, face, and head, finding no soft tissue anywhere. He noted that the sound was similar to tapping a brick wall and believed the remains weighed more than 400 lb. William Austin, the cemetery caretaker, estimated 500 lb. This made it difficult for the men to carry the remains to the new site. The original wooden grave marker was moved to the new site, but by 1891, it had been destroyed by souvenir hunters whittling pieces from it, and it was replaced with a statue. This, in turn, was destroyed by souvenir hunters and replaced in 1902 by a life-sized sandstone sculpture of Hickok. This, too, was badly defaced, and was then enclosed in a cage for protection. The enclosure was cut open by souvenir hunters in the 1950s, and the statue was removed.

Hickok is currently interred in a 10 ft square plot at the Mount Moriah Cemetery, surrounded by a cast-iron fence, with a U.S. flag flying nearby. The flag never goes down on Mt. Moriah Cemetery, as Deadwood was granted permission by the U.S. Congress during World War I to fly the flag 24 hours a day to honor all veterans who have served their country.

Calamity Jane was reported to have been buried next to Hickok according to her dying wish. Four of the men on the self-appointed committee who planned Calamity's funeral (Albert Malter, Frank Ankeney, Jim Carson, and Anson Higby) later stated that, since Hickok had "absolutely no use" for Jane in this life, they decided to play a posthumous joke on him by laying her to rest by his side.

Pistols known to have been carried by Hickok
Hickok's favorite guns were a pair of Colt 1851 Navy Model (.36 caliber) cap-and-ball revolvers. They had ivory grips and nickel plating, and were ornately engraved with "J.B. Hickok–1869" on the backstrap. He wore his revolvers butt-forward in a belt or sash (when wearing city clothes or buckskins, respectively), and seldom used holsters; he drew the pistols using a "reverse", "twist", or cavalry draw, as would a cavalryman. As Marshal of Hays, Hickok had a Adams and Deane percussion .44-caliber pistol.

At the time of his death, Hickok was wearing a Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Army revolver, a five-shot, single-action, .32-caliber weapon, innovative as one of the first metallic cartridge firearms and favored by many Union officers during the Civil War. Bonhams auction company offered this pistol at auction on November 18, 2013, in San Francisco, California, described as Hickok's Smith & Wesson No. 2, serial number 29963, a .32 rimfire with a six-inch barrel, blued finish, and varnished rosewood grips. The gun did not sell because the highest bid of $220,000 was less than the reserve set by the gun's owners. A second pistol Hickok had at his death was a Sharps Model 1859 .32-caliber four-barreled rim-fire derringer.

In popular culture
Hickok has remained one of the most popular and iconic figures of the American Old West, and is still frequently depicted in popular culture, including literature, film, and television.

Paramount Pictures' Western silent film Wild Bill Hickok (released on November 18, 1923) was directed by Clifford Smith and stars William S. Hart as Hickok. A print of the film is maintained in the Museum of Modern Art film archive.

The movie The Plainsman (1936), starring Gary Cooper as Hickok, features the alleged romance between Calamity Jane and him as its main plot line. It is a loose adaptation of Hickok's life, ending with his famous aces-and-eights card hand. A later film (1953) and subsequent stage musical, both titled Calamity Jane, also portray a romance between Calamity Jane and Hickok. In the film version, Howard Keel co-stars as Hickok to Doris Day's Calamity Jane.

Prairie Schooners is a 1940 American Western film directed by Sam Nelson, which stars Wild Bill Elliott as Hickok.

In 1954 an episode of Gunsmoke on CBS radio featured John Dehner as Hickok. Hickok was sent from Abilene to arrest Matt Dillon (William Conrad) for the murder of a man he had thrown out of Dodge earlier that month. In the episode Dillon and Hickok are old friends.

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok was a 1950s TV series starring Guy Madison and Andy Devine.

The White Buffalo (1977), starring Charles Bronson as Hickok, tells a tale of Hickok's hunt for a murderous white buffalo that follows him in his nightmares.

A highly fictional film account of Hickok's later years and death, titled Wild Bill (1995), stars Jeff Bridges as Hickok and David Arquette as Jack McCall, and was written and directed by Walter Hill.

An episode of the 1963-1964 TV series The Great Adventure featured Lloyd Bridges (Jeff's father) as Hickok.

Also in 1995, he's depicted as a character in an episode of Legend (TV series) by William Russ. The episode correctly relates Hickok's vision problems late in his life, and also includes his murderer, Jack McCall, in a highly fictionalized role. It ends with Hickok surviving the murder attempt due to wearing body armor when shot in the back, then secretly leaving for a ranch in California. Since he was actually shot in the back of the head, that plot element is a complete artifice of the episode writers.

A semifictionalized version of Hickok's time as marshal of Abilene, Kansas, titled Hickok (2017), stars Luke Hemsworth as Hickok, Trace Adkins as the Bull's Head Saloon keeper Phil Coe, Kris Kristofferson as Abilene mayor George Knox, and Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau as John Wesley Hardin. It was written by Michael Lanahan and directed by Timothy Woodward Jr.

In the early 1990s ABC television series Young Riders, a fictional account of Pony Express riders, Hickok is portrayed by Josh Brolin.

In the HBO series Deadwood (2004–2006), Wild Bill is played by Keith Carradine.

Hickok is a playable character in the 2018 board game Deadwood 1876 by Façade Games.

In The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Scruggs refuses to play the dead man's hand upon entering a game of poker.

Memorials and honorable distinctions
Hickok's birthplace is now the Wild Bill Hickok Memorial and is a listed historic site under the supervision of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The town of Deadwood, South Dakota, re-enacts Hickok's murder and McCall's capture every summer evening. In 1979, Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

title: Wild Bill Hickok


text:
Post machine

Post machine may refer to:
 * Post tag system
 * Post–Turing machine

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Post machine


text:
Online service provider law

Online service provider law is a summary and case law tracking page for laws, legal decisions and issues relating to online service providers (OSPs), like the Wikipedia and Internet service providers, from the viewpoint of an OSP considering its liability and customer service issues. See Cyber law for broader coverage of the law of cyberspace.

United States
The general liability risk within the United States is low but it's necessary to review the laws and decisions of all other countries because the extraterritorial application of laws to content hosted in the US is a significant concern.

Libel, defamation

 * 1991 Cubby v. CompuServe held that CompuServe wasn't the publisher and granted summary judgment in its favor.
 * May 1995 Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. decision which held that Prodigy was the publisher, because it could delete messages.
 * 1996 Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which states in part that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider". Note that this portion of the CDA was not struck down and remains law.
 * November 1997 Zeran v. AOL The CDA protects AOL even though it repeatedly ignored a defamation complaint.
 * April 1998 Blumenthal v. AOL (part of the case against Drudge and AOL) held that the CDA protects AOL for Drudge's writing that Blumenthal, an assistant to the US President, had a spousal abuse background (retracted in two days) even though it paid Drudge US$3,000 a month for his columns, had editorial control and might well have been liable if it was not an online publication.
 * Lunney v. Prodigy Services Co. 94 N.Y.2d 242 (1999) held that internet chatroom provider was not considered a publisher of defamatory material posted from an impostor account due to Prodigy's passive role.
 * 2003 Carafano v. Metrosplash.com (the Star Trek actress case) . Providing multiple choice options in forms doesn't invalidate CDA immunity.

Immunity under Section 230 requires that: (1) the defendant is a provider or user of an interactive computer service; (2) the cause of action treat the defendant as a publisher or speaker of information; and (3) the information at issue be provided by another information content provider. Zeran, 129 F.3d at 330. Even completely ignoring a complaint has generally been found not to garner liability, so protection appears to be very comprehensive, though it still doesn't stop people from trying.

In 2002, the California Court of Appeal held that CDA Section 230 does not apply to distributor liability, meaning that a defendant who had notice of a defamatory statement must stop publishing it or face liability. Barrett v. Rosenthal, 114 Cal. App.4th 1379 (2002). The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision overturned, holding that Rosenthal was a "user of interactive computer services" and therefore immune from liability under Section 230. See also Grace v. eBay, Inc., 2004 WL 1632047 (Cal. Ct. App. Jul. 22, 2004) (no immunity against liability for a distributor of information who knew or had reason to know that the information was defamatory). Grace v. eBay was resolved without an opinion. The lower courts in Grace and Barrett had reached opposite conclusions when they were appealed to the California Supreme Court. In taking these cases, it was deciding to uphold or reverse Blumenthal v. AOL. Blumenthal, noted the conference report comment that the clear intent of the CDA was to overrule the state decision in Stratton-Oakmont v. Prodigy and opined that accepting distributor liability would expose them to liability that Congress had clearly intended to protect them from.

Patent, trademark, right of publicity, trade secret

 * Communications Decency Act

The CDA does not "limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property" 47 U.S.C. Section 230(e)(2); see also Gucci America, Inc. v. Hall & Associates, 135 F. Supp. 2d 409 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) (no immunity for contributory liability for trademark infringement); Perfect 10, Inc. v CCBill LLC (No. CV 02-7624 LGB) (C.D. Cal. 22 June 2004) (state right of publicity claim is not covered by Section 230); but see Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., 339 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2003) (dismissing, inter alia, right of publicity claim under Section 230 without discussion).

Courts have not yet addressed whether a state law trade secret claim is a "law pertaining to intellectual property."

Copyright

 * Communications Decency Act
 * Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (part of the DMCA)
 * List of leading legal cases in copyright law

The OCILLA can provide a safe harbor for OSPs who comply with its requirements. As noted above, CDA Section 230 does not provide protection against a copyright claim.

If the OSP does not fall under OCILLA's safe harbor, it still may be protected. In Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc., 907 F. Supp. 1361 (N. D. Cal. 1995), an internet services provider who merely transmitted material that infringed the plaintiff’s copyright was held not liable. See also CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir., 2004)

Security
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is one US law covering this area.

Defamation
Gutnick v Dow Jones US publisher, liable in Australia under the relatively new lex loci delicti rule (where the harm happens).

Copyright

 * Duration of copyright in Australia

Defamation
The permanent nature of the internet and the fact that regulation of what people post is almost impossible to maintain can lead to many dangerous situations. And when these slanderous accusations cause damage to an injured party, they can be classified as Online Defamation.

The first case considering online defamation was in Godfrey v. Demon Internet Service [1999] 4 All ER 342, [2001] QB 201 (QBD). An anonymous poster impersonated a physics lecturer and posted a defamatory comments on a Usenet newsgroup. The posting remained online for several weeks even after the real lecturer made requests to take it down. The issue was whether the service provider had 'published' the posting. The Court held "ISPs do not participate in the process of publication as such but merely act as facilitators...". However, in Godfrey, it was held that the ISP could be held liable at common law if it had been notified of a defamatory posting, and was so rendered responsible for publication from that moment onwards.

The later case of Bunt v. Tilley & Ors [2006] EWHC 407 (QB), concerned a claim for alleged defamation against the ISPs who hosted websites containing defamatory material. The court found that the ISPs were merely passive facilitators rather than actively procuring the commission of the tort like a publisher. No defamation was ever proven.

As of 1 January 2014, changes to UK defamation laws will come into force, with the Defamation Act 2013 and accompanying Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013. in which operators of web sites are not liable for defamation claims against them for user generated content (e.g. comments on a forum posted by users) provided they take certain actions within reasonable timeframes when notified of the offending content. Where the author cannot be contacted, (e.g. if the posting is anonymous or the user has supplied obviously bogus contact details), the website operator must take the content down or they can be liable.

 * Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 (c.26) provides a defence for the operator of a website where a defamation action is brought in respect of a statement posted on that website if it was not the operator who posted the statement. The defence can be defeated if the claimant can show that it was not possible for them to identify the person posting the statement, the claimant gave the operator a notice of complaint in relation to that statement and the operator did not respond to the notice of complaint in accordance with these regulations.

Copyright
According to section 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, a work is eligible for copyright protection if it is:

"1 Copyright and copyright works

(1) Copyright is a property right which subsists in accordance with this Part in the following descriptions of work? (a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, (b) sound recordings, films or broadcasts, and (c) the typographical arrangement of published editions. (2) In this Part "copyright work" means a work of any of those descriptions in which copyright subsists. (3) Copyright does not subsist in a work unless the requirements of this Part with respect to qualification for copyright protection are met (see section 153 and the provisions referred to there)."

According to the UK Patent Office website, the definition of 'original' is the following:

"A work can only be original if it is the result of independent creative effort. It will not be original if it has been copied from something that already exists. If it is similar to something that already exists but there has been no copying from the existing work either directly or indirectly, then it may be original.

The term 'original' also involves a test of substantiality - literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works will not be original if there has not been sufficient skill and labour expended in their creation. But, sometimes significant investment of resources without significant intellectual input can still count as sufficient skill and labour.

Ultimately, only the courts can decide whether something is original, but there is much case law indicating, for example, that names and titles do not have sufficient substantiality to be original and that, where an existing work is widely known, it will be difficult to convince a court that there has been no copying if your work is very similar or identical.

Sound recordings, films and published editions do not have to be original but they will not be new copyright works if they have been copied from existing sound recordings, films and published editions.

Broadcasts do not have to be original, but there will be no copyright, if, or to the extent that, they infringe copyright in another broadcast."

The other relevant portion of the Act in question is section 153:

"153 Qualification for copyright protection (1) Copyright does not subsist in a work unless the qualification requirements of this Chapter are satisfied as regards? (a) the author (see section 154), or (b) the country in which the work was first published (see section 155), or (c) in the case of a broadcast, the country from which the broadcast was made (see section 156). (2) Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to Crown copyright or Parliamentary copyright (see sections 163 to 166B) or to copyright subsisting by virtue of section 168 (copyright of certain international organisations). (3) If the qualification requirements of this Chapter, or section 163, 165 or 168, are once satisfied in respect of a work, copyright does not cease to subsist by reason of any subsequent event."

This section controls the nationality and country of origin requirements for copyright. It is roughly comparable with US law, since both countries are signatories to the Berne Convention.

Crown copyright
Photographs created before 1 June 1957 have a 50-year copyright period, as do other works except engravings. Photographs published before August 1989 also have a 50-year copyright period.
 * flowchart for determining Crown Copyright status of literary, dramatic and musical works (PDF)
 * flowchart for determining Crown Copyright status of artistic works (PDF)

Japan
On 27 May 2002, so-called Provider Liability Limitation Law (プロバイダ責任法 or プロバイダ責任制限法) was enacted. It is said that the major purpose of the law is to limit the liability of ISPs, administrators and system operators of bulletin boards, hosting services, and others. The law covers copyright violation, defamation, and obscenity among other things. Regarding those contents that have to be removed, the law holds that the service providers cannot be held liable, unless 1) they have the technological means to remove the content, and either 2-a) they have the knowledge of the illegal content, or 2-b) they could reasonably have gotten to know it. It also specifies circumstances under which service providers may offer personal information of a user to another.

Major cases preceding the law include Niftyserve Case, in which a system operator/ moderator of an online forum was found to be liable for not removing a series of defamatory postings. The system operator was not requested by the defamed participant to remove the content, but had the knowledge of the content. The court found it to be an important ground for the liability.

Canada
In Canada, there is no legislation addressing liability for online service providers; and few cases.

In Carter v. BC Federation of Foster Parents Association, 2004 BCSC 137, a case on a service provider's liability for an anonymous forum posting, the Court cited the US cases of Cubby v. Compuserve and Lunney v. Prodigy Services with approval for its editorial control test.

Where a defamatory statement is found, a service provider may avail themselves to a defence of innocent dissemination - as set out in the English case of Vizetelly v. Mudie’s Select Library Ltd., [1900] 2 Q.B. 17.

Copyright

 * copyright outside the UK has some guidance.
 * Bromberg Sunstein guidance on international copyright (archive link, was dead)
 * ISP Liability in the Russian Federation, see: Stefan Labesius, Kontent i Pravo v. Masterhost, Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, Judgment of 23 December 2008, Nr. 10962/08, Translation and Comment, 1 (2010) JIPITEC 179, para. 1

title: Online service provider law


text:
Anthropophage

An anthropophage or anthropophagus (from ανθρωποφάγος, "human-eater", plural ανθρωποφάγοι) was a member of a mythical race of cannibals described by the playwright William Shakespeare. The word first appears in English around 1552.

Origin
The Anthropophagi might have been inspired by the Scythian tribe of the Androphagi described by the Ancient Greek author Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

In literature
The most famous usage of the Anthropophagi appears in William Shakespeare's Othello:

"Othello, Act 1. Scene III"

Shakespeare makes yet another reference to the cannibalist anthropophagus in the Merry Wives of Windsor:

"Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 4. Scene V"

T.H. White also features the Anthropophagi as Robin Hood's enemies in his novel The Sword in the Stone:

"The Sword in the Stone, P138-139"

American novelist Rick Yancey incorporates the myths of the Anthropophagi in his 2010 release The Monstrumologist.

Pop culture
In popular culture, the anthropophagus is sometimes depicted as a being without a head, but instead have their faces on the torso. This may be a misinterpretation based on Shakespeare's writings in Othello, where the anthropophagi are mistaken to be described by the immediate following line, "and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders". In reality, the line actually refers to a separate, different race of mythical beings known as the Blemmyes, who are indeed said to have no head, and have their facial features on the chest.

title: Anthropophage


text:
Young God Records

Young God Records is an independent record label formed by Michael Gira in 1990 that specializes in experimental, avant-garde and often non genre-specific releases. The label was named after an EP released by Gira's band Swans called Young God.

The label's original intent was to facilitate the release of Swans' music, but while the band was disbanded Young God grew to host the Angels of Light as well as a number of other unique bands and artists, including: Akron/Family, Devendra Banhart, Lisa Germano, Ulan Bator, and Mi and L'au. Swans was re-formed in 2010, and began again releasing music under the Young God label. In 2012, Gira told Pitchfork that Young God would not be putting out any new albums by other bands, citing the decline in revenue.

List of artists

 * Akron/Family
 * The Angels of Light
 * Devendra Banhart
 * James Blackshaw
 * The Body Lovers / The Body Haters
 * Calla
 * David Coulter
 * Fire on Fire
 * Flux Information Sciences
 * Larkin Grimm
 * Lisa Germano
 * Mi and L'au
 * Larsen
 * Charlemagne Palestine / David Coulter / Jean Marie Mathoul
 * Swans
 * Ulan Bator
 * Windsor for the Derby
 * Wooden Wand

title: Young God Records


text:
EMILY's List

EMILYs List is an American political action committee (PAC) that aims to help elect Democratic female candidates in favor of abortion rights to office. It was founded by Ellen Malcolm in 1985. The group's name is an acronym for "Early Money Is Like Yeast". Malcolm commented that "it makes the dough rise". The saying refers to a convention of political fundraising: receiving many donations early in a race helps attract subsequent donors. EMILYs List bundles contributions to the campaigns of Democratic women in favor of abortion rights running in targeted races.

From 1985 through 2008, EMILYs List raised $240 million for political candidates. EMILYs List spent $27.4 million in 2010, $34 million in 2012, and $44.9 million in 2014. The organization was on track to raise $60 million for the 2016 election cycle, much of it earmarked for Hillary Clinton, whose presidential bid EMILYs List had endorsed.

History and mission
EMILYs List was founded in 1985 when 25 women met in the home of Ellen Malcolm. Founding members included Barbara Boxer, Ann Richards, Anne Wexler, and Donna Shalala. In 1986, early financial support from EMILYs List helped elect Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the first female Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right (not appointed or filling a seat of a deceased husband).

The group's mission is to cultivate a donor network to raise money for female Democratic candidates in favor of abortion rights. To become an official EMILY's List member, an individual must pay $100 to join EMILYs List and agree to donate a minimum of $100 each to two U.S. Senate, U.S. House, or gubernatorial candidates. Members donate directly to EMILY's List, which bundles the checks together and forwards them to candidates.

In her book, When Women Win: EMILYs List and the Rise of Women in American Politics, Ellen Malcolm, the organization's founder, stated that "creating progressive policies and promoting them can be incredibly valuable. But those policies will never be implemented unless enough politicians are elected who support them." They focused specifically on women in favor of abortion rights because they felt that "women couldn't be equal until they had control over their bodies."

They focused on raising early money for women because women were not getting money from the Democratic party and thus were generally not winning races even if they were qualified, and they felt that early money could help convince people that their campaigns were credible and would help them raise more money later.

For the 2006 election cycle, EMILYs List raised about $46 million for candidates and the group was listed as the biggest PAC in the nation by Political Money Line. EMILY's List endorsed 31 candidates in 2006, eight of whom were victorious.

In 2008, EMILYs List endorsed 22 U.S. House candidates, two U.S. Senate candidates, and three gubernatorial contenders. The PAC helped elect two new female senators, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and supported the gubernatorial election of Bev Perdue of North Carolina, the re-election of Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington, and the successful elections of twelve new women to the United States House of Representatives.

EMILYs List criteria for picking candidates include staff recommendations, viability, "demographics and history of the district, analysis of opponents or potential opponents, analysis of candidate's education, political experience, etc., demonstrated success at fund-raising, poll data to demonstrate name recognition and grass roots support."

Staff
Ellen Malcolm served as president of EMILYs List from its founding until 2010. Stephanie Schriock was chosen to succeed Malcolm, who became chairwoman of the board of directors. Schriock announced she would step down in late 2020, following 11 years at the organization.

Laphonza Butler took over as president of EMILYs List in 2021, leaving in October 2023 to fill the remainder of the late Dianne Feinstein's U.S. Senate term. Political strategist Jessica Mackler was selected as interim president following Butler's Senate appointment, and her position as fourth president of EMILYs List was made permanent in March 2024.

Emily Cain has served as Executive Director since 2017. Amy Dacey was the executive director of EMILYs List from 2010 through 2013.

The organization's board of directors includes Ellen Malcolm, Rebecca Haile, Yolanda Caraway, Yvette Nicole Brown, Maya Harris, María Teresa Kumar, Wendy Greuel, Judith Lichtman, and Donald Sussman.

Programs
The Political Opportunity Program (POP) was established in 2001 to encourage Democratic women in favor of abortion rights to run for state and local office. POP targets its resources toward Democratic women in favor of abortion rights running for state legislatures, state constitutional offices, and local offices.

Women Vote!
In 1995, EMILYs List began a program called Women Vote! to promote a higher voter turnout among women. Women Vote! is Emily's List's independent expenditure arm communicating directly with voters.

Criticism
Critics would like to see EMILYs List expand its definition of "women's issues" to include economic issues like a higher minimum wage and expanded Social Security. Others have said that the group needs to focus its resources better, staying out of races where there is already an incumbent progressive Democrat and concentrating on other races instead. Democrat Marcy Kaptur criticized EMILYs List for being too narrow in focus by emphasizing abortion rights over other progressive issues, such as the minimum wage, that also affect women.

EMILYs List in the past has received some criticism for how much money they are accepting and where that money is going to as being a Political Action Committee or PAC. In Nick Hoffman's article EMILYs List v. FEC he discusses EMILYs List as a non-profit that has had trouble with the Federal Election Commission or FEC. Hoffman accuses EMILYs List of arguing with the FEC over how much money should be allowed to be given to campaigns. EMILYs List has been criticized for pushing the allowance of no limit on how much money can be donated to campaigns.

Endorsed candidates
EMILYs List provides training, recruits women to run, and endorses and funds female political candidates. EMILYs List is listed as an "important source of candidate support," in a 2010 article in the Harvard International Review.

Presidential
During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, EMILYs List supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama and bundled $855,518 for Clinton, making the group one of the five largest donors to her 2008 campaign. When NARAL endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, EMILY's List was strongly critical. EMILYs List President Ellen Malcolm said, "I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton - who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade - to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them." After the conclusion of the Democratic presidential primaries, EMILYs List moved their support to Barack Obama and was vocal in their opposition to the McCain/Palin ticket.

In 2013, EMILYs List launched its Madam President campaign, saying, "There is a mandate for women's leadership in this country. But we have yet to break through the final glass ceiling and put a woman at the top of the Democratic ticket and into the Presidency."

Accordingly, EMILYs List endorsed Hillary Clinton for president On April 12, 2015 within hours of Clinton forming an exploratory committee to run for president. Madame President came to house the former social media presences of Ready for Hillary PAC which did grassroots organizing in preparation for Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries EMILYs List endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren the day before Super Tuesday.

2012
In 2012, 80% of the candidates endorsed by EMILYs List in the general election won a seat.

2014
In the 2014 election cycle, EMILYs List endorsed 24 U.S. House candidates, six U.S. Senate candidates, and six gubernatorial candidates. Of these 40 candidates endorsed by EMILY's List, 42.5% won.

2018
In the 2018 election, EMILYs List endorsed eight women in gubernatorial races, 12 for the U.S. Senate, and 64 candidates for the House of Representatives.

Similar groups
Similar groups have formed along the same lines as EMILYs List, with some slight variations. In 1994, Joan Kirner created a similar organization in Australia by the name EMILY's List Australia. Political activist and former school teacher Amy Laufer founded Virginia's List, a political group supporting Democratic women running for office in Virginia.

EMILYs List's conservative counterparts include: The Wish List, which supports Republican women in favor of abortion rights; Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion PAC that supports women who oppose abortion; and Maggie's List, a PAC founded in Florida in 2010 to "raise awareness and funds to increase the number of conservative women elected to federal public office."

title: EMILY's List


text:
Original jurisdiction

In common law legal systems, original jurisdiction of a court is the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a higher court has the power to review a lower court's decision.

India
In India, the Supreme Court has original, appellate and advisory jurisdiction. Its exclusive original jurisdiction extends to all cases between the Government of India and the States of India or between Government of India and states on one side and one or more states on the other side or cases between different states. Original jurisdiction is related to cases directly brought to the Supreme Court. Cases that require the interpretation of the constitution or cases relating to the denial of fundamental rights are heard in the Supreme Court. In case there is a dispute between two or more states or between the union and the states, the Supreme Court decides such cases. In addition, Article 131 of the Constitution of India grants original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court on all cases involving the enforcement of fundamental rights of citizens. It is empowered to issue directions, orders or writs, including writs like habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari to enforce them.

The appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court can be invoked by a certificate granted by the High Court concerned under Article 132(1), 133(1) or 134 of the Constitution in respect of any judgement, decree or final order of a High Court in both civil and criminal cases, involving substantial questions of law as to the interpretation of the Indian Constitution.

The Supreme Court has special advisory jurisdiction in matters that may specifically be referred to by the president of India under Article 143 of the Indian Constitution.

Supreme Court
In the United States, courts having original jurisdiction are referred to as trial courts. In certain types of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction concurrently with lower courts. The original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court is governed by Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and Title 28 of the United States Code, section 1251. Most commonly, original jurisdiction cases involve suits between states as parties, usually over territorial or water rights disputes.

The United States Constitution defines Original Jurisdiction thus: "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. United States Constitution Article III, §3, cl. 2"

Federal and state courts
In the federal court system and those of most U.S. states, there are several types of trial courts. That is, there are several specialized courts with original jurisdiction over specific types of matters, and then a court with original jurisdiction over anything not reserved to more specialized courts.

Special courts
Not all "trial courts" exclusively exercise original jurisdiction. Indeed, in both the federal and most state court systems, the trial courts of "general jurisdiction" hear appeals from trial courts of limited original jurisdiction; many states call these courts "superior courts" for this reason. For example, United States district courts hear appeals from their bankruptcy courts (which operate as quasi-independent units of district courts but are constitutionally separate Article I tribunals). Similarly, the Law Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey hears appeals from Pittsburgh have unique systems) and from certain agencies of local (e.g., zoning board) and state governments (e.g., Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board).

title: Original jurisdiction


text:
Play piercing

Play piercing, needle play, or recreational acupuncture is body piercing done for the purpose of enjoying the experience rather than producing a permanent body decoration. Needles, sharpened bones, or other tools used in play piercing are removed from the body when the episode is complete, allowing the wounds to heal. Those who engage in play piercing may do so for self-expression, imitating tribal rituals, spiritual self-discovery, sexual pleasure, or entertainment.

Play piercing as part of a BDSM scene can produce an endorphin high, which can last for hours and can induce orgasm in many of the people who experience it. The experience of multiple piercings in an erotically or spiritually charged context is qualitatively very different from the experience most people have had with phlebotomists in medical settings, in part because the needle is placed 'through' the skin at a secant so that both ends are accessible, rather than 'into' the skin.

Play piercing should always be carried out using new sterile hypodermic needles or acupuncture needles on skin which has been cleaned with an antiseptic such as alcohol or povidone iodine (which is a potential allergen), by people who have been properly trained. Improper technique can result in the transmission of bloodborne diseases (due to needlestick injuries, for example) or puncture wounds, but if done correctly there is far less danger of injury or infection than from being scratched by a cat due to the depth of insertion being controlled and the use of a sterilized needle. Needles may be arranged in aesthetically pleasing configurations such as a smiley face, may be laced together like a corset, or may be used to sew on temporary decorations such as bells using sterile thread. Twisting of the needle(s) or pulling them away from the skin will also result a different type of sensation.

A more extreme form of play piercing is flesh hook suspension where a person is suspended vertically or horizontally by one or more hooks through their flesh. This practice is done in some cultures as a rite of passage or as part of a BDSM performance. There are also dance rituals in which flesh hooks attached to multiple people are attached together.

title: Play piercing


text:
National Reconnaissance Office

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government. It provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA. The NRO announced in 2023 that it plans within the following decade to quadruple the number of satellites it operates and increase the number of signals and images it delivers by a factor of ten.

NRO is considered, along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), to be one of the "big five" U.S. intelligence agencies. The NRO is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, 2 mi south of the Washington Dulles International Airport.

The Director of the NRO reports to both the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense. The NRO's federal workforce is a hybrid organization consisting of some 3,000 personnel including NRO cadre, Air Force, Army, CIA, NGA, NSA, Navy and US Space Force  personnel. A 1996 bipartisan commission report described the NRO as having by far the largest budget of any intelligence agency, and "virtually no federal workforce", accomplishing most of its work through "tens of thousands" of defense contractor personnel. From its founding in 1961 the NRO's existence was classified and not revealed publicly until 1992.

Mission
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) develops, builds, launches, and operates space reconnaissance systems and conducts intelligence-related activities for U.S. national security.

The NRO also coordinates collection and analysis of information from airplane and satellite reconnaissance by the military services and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, which is part of the National Intelligence Program (formerly known as the National Foreign Intelligence Program). The agency is part of the Department of Defense. The NRO works closely with its intelligence and space partners, which include the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the United States Strategic Command, the United States Space Command, Naval Research Laboratory, and other agencies and organizations.

History

The NRO was established on August 25, 1960, after management problems and insufficient progress with the USAF satellite reconnaissance program (see SAMOS and MIDAS). The formation was based on a 25 August 1960 recommendation to President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a special National Security Council meeting, and the agency was to coordinate the USAF and CIA's (and later the navy and NSA's) reconnaissance activities.

The NRO's first photo reconnaissance satellite program was the Corona program, the existence of which was declassified February 24, 1995, and which existed from August 1960 to May 1972 (although the first test flight occurred on February 28, 1959). The Corona system used (sometimes multiple) film capsules dropped by satellites, which were recovered mid-air by military craft. The first successful recovery from space (Discoverer XIII) occurred on August 12, 1960, and the first image from space was seen six days later. The first imaging resolution was 8 meters, which was improved to 2 meters. Individual images covered, on average, an area of about 10 by. The last Corona mission (the 145th), was launched May 25, 1972, and this mission's last images were taken May 31, 1972. From May 1962 to August 1964, the NRO conducted 12 mapping missions as part of the "Argon" system. Only seven were successful. In 1963, the NRO conducted a mapping mission using higher resolution imagery, as part of the "Lanyard" program. The Lanyard program flew one successful mission.

NRO missions since 1972 are classified, and portions of many earlier programs remain unavailable to the public.

On August 18, 2000, the National Reconnaissance Office recognized its ten original Founders. They were: William O. Baker, Merton E. Davies, Sidney Drell, Richard L. Garwin, Amrom Harry Katz, James R. Killian, Edwin H. Land, Frank W. Lehan, William J. Perry, Edward M. Purcell. Although their early work was highly classified, this group of men went on to extraordinary public accomplishments, including a Secretary of Defense, a Nobel Laureate, a president of MIT, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Science, a renowned planetary scientist, and more.

Existence
The NRO was first mentioned by the press in a 1971 New York Times article. The first official acknowledgement of NRO was a Senate committee report in October 1973, which inadvertently exposed the existence of the NRO. In 1985, a New York Times article revealed details on the operations of the NRO.

Despite news coverage of NRO's existence, the United States intelligence community debated for 20 years whether to confirm the reports. The existence of the NRO was declassified on September 18, 1992, by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, as recommended by the Director of Central Intelligence. The brief press release did not mention the word "satellite", and the agency did not confirm for several more years that it launched satellites on rockets.

Funding controversy
A Washington Post article in September 1995 reported that the NRO had quietly hoarded between $1 billion and $1.7 billion in unspent funds without informing the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, or Congress.

The CIA was in the midst of an inquiry into the NRO's funding because of complaints that the agency had spent $300 million of hoarded funds from its classified budget to build a new headquarters building in Chantilly, Virginia, a year earlier.

In total, NRO had accumulated US$3.8 billion (inflation adjusted US$ 0 billion in ) in forward funding. As a consequence, NRO's three distinct accounting systems were merged.

The presence of the classified new headquarters was revealed by the Federation of American Scientists who obtained unclassified copies of the blueprints filed with the building permit application. After 9/11 those blueprints were apparently classified. The reports of an NRO slush fund were true. According to former CIA general counsel Jeffrey Smith, who led the investigation: "Our inquiry revealed that the NRO had for years accumulated very substantial amounts as a 'rainy day fund.'"

Future Imagery Architecture
In 1999 the NRO embarked on a $25 billion project with Boeing entitled Future Imagery Architecture to create a new generation of imaging satellites. In 2002 the project was far behind schedule and would most likely cost $2 billion to $3 billion more than planned, according to NRO records. The government pressed forward with efforts to complete the project, but after two more years, several more review panels and billions more in expenditures, the project was killed in what a New York Times report called "perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects."

Mid-2000s to present
On August 23, 2001, Brian Patrick Regan, a civilian employee of TRW at NRO, was arrested at Dulles International Airport outside Washington while boarding a flight for Zurich. He was carrying coded information about Iraqi and Chinese missile sites. He also had the addresses of the Chinese and Iraqi Embassies in Switzerland and Austria. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for offering to sell intelligence secrets to Iraq and China.

In January 2008, the government announced that a reconnaissance satellite operated by the NRO would make an unplanned and uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in the next several months. Satellite watching hobbyists said that it was likely the USA-193, built by Lockheed Martin Corporation, which failed shortly after achieving orbit in December 2006. On February 14, 2008, the Pentagon announced that rather than allowing the satellite to make an uncontrolled re-entry while still in one piece, it would instead be shot down by a missile fired from a Navy cruiser. The intercept took place on February 21, 2008, resulting in the satellite breaking up into multiple pieces.

In July 2008, the NRO declassified the existence of its Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites, citing difficulty in discussing the creation of the Space-Based Radar with the United States Air Force and other entities. In August 2009, FOIA archives were queried for a copy of the NRO video, "Satellite Reconnaissance: Secret Eyes in Space." The seven-minute video chronicles the early days of the NRO and many of its early programs. It was proposed that the NRO share the imagery of the United States itself with the National Applications Office for domestic law enforcement purposes. The NAO was disestablished in 2009. The NRO is a non-voting associate member of the Civil Applications Committee (CAC). The CAC is an inter-agency committee that coordinates and oversees the Federal- Civil use of classified collections. The CAC was officially chartered in 1975 by the Office of the President to provide Federal- Civil agencies access to National Systems data in support of mission responsibilities. According to Asia Times Online, one important mission of NRO satellites is the tracking of non-US submarines on patrol or on training missions in the world's oceans and seas. At the National Space Symposium in April 2010, NRO director General Bruce Carlson, United States Air Force (Retired) announced that until the end of 2011, NRO is embarking on "the most aggressive launch schedule that this organization has undertaken in the last twenty-five years. There are a number of very large and very critical reconnaissance satellites that will go into orbit in the next year to a year and a half."

In 2012, a McClatchy investigation found that the NRO was possibly breaching ethical and legal boundaries by encouraging its polygraph examiners to extract personal and private information from DoD personnel during polygraph tests that were limited to counterintelligence issues. Allegations of abusive polygraph practices were brought forward by former NRO polygraph examiners. In 2014, an inspector general's report concluded that NRO failed to report felony admissions of child sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities. NRO obtained these criminal admissions during polygraph testing but never forwarded the information to police. NRO's failure to act in the public interest by reporting child sexual predators was first made public in 2012 by former NRO polygraph examiners. On August 30, 2019, Donald Trump tweeted an image of “the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the Safir SLV Launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran”. The image almost certainly came from a satellite known as USA 224, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in the Netherlands. The satellite was launched by the National Reconnaissance Office in 2011. On January 31, 2020, Rocket Lab successfully launched a NROL-151 payload for the NRO.

On December 19, 2020, NROL-108 was successfully launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. On July 15, 2020, NROL-149 was successfully launched aboard the first launch of Northrop Grumman's new Minotaur IV rocket. On April 27, 2021, NROL-82 was successfully launched aboard United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV rocket. On June 15, 2021, NROL-111, a set of three classified satellites, was successfully launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Minotaur I rocket. On July 13, 2022, NROL-162 was launched aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Mahia, New Zealand. On September 24, 2022, NROL-91 (USA 338) was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base's Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.

In 2021, SpaceX reportedly won a $1.8 billion contract from the NRO to build a network of hundreds of spy satellites under its Starshield unit. The satellites reportedly will be able to "track targets on the ground and share that data with U.S. intelligence and military officials... enabling the U.S. government to quickly capture continuous imagery of activities on the ground nearly anywhere on the globe."

Organization
The NRO is part of the Department of Defense. The Director of the NRO is appointed by the President of the United States, by and with the consent of the Senate in accordance with Title 50 of U.S. code. Traditionally, the position was given to either the Under Secretary of the Air Force or the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space, but with the appointment of Donald Kerr as Director of the NRO in July 2005 the position is now independent. The Agency is organized as follows:

Principal Deputy Director of the NRO (PDDNRO)
 * Reports to and coordinates with the DNRO on all NRO activities and handles the daily management of the NRO with decision responsibility as delegated by the DNRO; and,
 * In the absence of the Director, acts on behalf of the DNRO.

Deputy Director of the NRO (DDNRO)
 * Senior USAF General Officer. Represents the civilian/uniformed USAF personnel assigned to the NRO;
 * Assists both the DNRO and PDDNRO in the daily direction of the NRO; and,
 * Coordinates activities between the USAF and the NRO.

The Corporate Staff
 * Encompasses all those support functions such as legal, diversity, human resources, security/counterintelligence, procurement, public affairs, etc. necessary for the day-to-day operation of the NRO and in support of the DNRO, PDNRO, and DDNRO.

Office of Space Launch (OSL)
 * Responsible for all aspects of a satellite launch including launch vehicle hardware, launch services integration, mission assurance, operations, transportation, and mission safety; and,
 * OSL is NRO's launch representative with industry, the USAF, and NASA.

Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate (AS&T)
 * Invents and delivers advanced technologies;
 * Develops new sources and methods; and,
 * Enables multi-intelligence solutions.

Business Plans and Operations (BPO)
 * Responsible for all financial and budgetary aspects of NRO programs and operations; and,
 * Coordinates all legislative, international, and public affairs communications.

Communications Systems Acquisition Directorate (COMM)
 * Supports the NRO by providing communications services through physical and virtual connectivity; and,
 * Enables the sharing of mission-critical information with mission partners and customers.

Ground Enterprise Directorate (GED)
 * Provides an integrated ground system that sends timely information to users worldwide.

Geospatial Intelligence Systems Acquisition Directorate (GEOINT)
 * Responsible for acquiring NRO's technologically advanced imagery collection systems, which provides geospatial intelligence data to the Intelligence Community and the military.

Management Services and Operations (MS&O)
 * Provides services such as facilities support, transportation and warehousing, logistics, and other business support, which the NRO needs to operate on a daily basis.

Mission Operations Directorate (MOD)
 * Operates, maintains and reports the status of NRO satellites and their associated ground systems;
 * Manages the 24-hour NRO Operations Center (NROC) which, working with U.S Strategic Command, provides defensive space control and space protection, monitors satellite flight safety, and provides space situational awareness.

Mission Integration Directorate (MID)
 * Engages with users of NRO systems to understand their operational and intelligence problems and provide solutions in collaboration with NRO's mission partners.
 * Manages the Tactical Defense Space Reconnaissance (TacDSR) Program to directly answer emerging warfighting intelligence requirements of the Combatant Commands (CCMDs), Services, and other tactical users as funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) Military Intelligence Program (MIP).

Signals Intelligence Systems Acquisition Directorate (SIGINT)
 * This directorate builds and deploys NRO's signals intelligence satellite systems that collect communication, electronic, and foreign instrumentation signals intelligence.

Systems Engineering Directorate (SED)
 * Provides beginning-to-end systems engineering for all of NRO's systems.

Personnel
In 2007, the NRO described itself as "a hybrid organization consisting of some 3,000 personnel and jointly staffed by members of the armed services, the Central Intelligence Agency and DOD civilian personnel." Between 2010 and 2012, the workforce is expected to increase by 100. The majority of workers for the NRO are private corporate contractors, with $7 billion of the agency's $8 billion budget going to private corporations.

Budget
The NRO derives its funding both from the US intelligence budget and the military budget. In 1971, the annual budget was estimated to be around $1 billion in nominal dollars ($ 0 billion real in ). A 1975 report by Congress's Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy states that the NRO had "the largest budget of any intelligence agency". By 1994, the annual budget had risen to $6 billion (inflation adjusted $ 0 billion in ), and for 2010 it is estimated to amount to $15 billion (inflation adjusted $ 0 billion in ). This would correspond to 19% of the overall US intelligence budget of $80 billion for FY2010. For Fiscal Year 2012 the budget request for science and technology included an increase to almost 6% (about $600 million) of the NRO budget after it had dropped to just about 3% of the overall budget in the years before.

NRO directives and instructions
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the NRO declassified a list of secret directives for internal use. The following is a list of the released directives, which are available for download:

 * NROD 10-2 – "National Reconnaissance Office External Management Policy"
 * NROD 10-4 – "National Reconnaissance Office Sensitive Activities Management Group"
 * NROD 10-5 – "Office of Corporate System Engineer Charter"
 * NROD 22-1 – "Office of Inspector General"
 * NROD 22-2 – "Employee Reports of Urgent Concerns to Congress"
 * NROD 22-3 – "Obligations to report evidence of Possible Violations of Federal Criminal Law and Illegal Intelligence Activities"
 * NROD 50-1 – "Executive Order 12333 – Intelligence Activities Affecting United States Persons"
 * NROD 61-1 – "NRO Internet Policy, Information Technology"
 * NROD 82-1a – "NRO Space Launch Management"
 * NROD 110-2 – "National Reconnaissance Office Records and Information Management Program"
 * NROD 120-1 – The NRO Military Uniform Wear Policy
 * NROD 120-2 – "The NRO Awards and Recognition Programs"
 * NROD 120-3 – "Executive Secretarial Panel"
 * NROD 120-4 – "National Reconnaissance Pioneer Recognition Program"
 * NROD 120-5 – "National Reconnaissance Office Utilization of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program"
 * NROD 121-1 – "Training of NRO Personnel"
 * NROI 150-4 – "Prohibited Items in NRO Headquarters Buildings/Property"

Coordination with USSPACECOM and USSF
At a mid-2019 press event just prior to the establishment of USSPACECOM, then-Air Force General John W. Raymond (set to lead the new command) stated that the NRO will “respond to the direction of the United States Space Command commander” to “protecting and defending those (space) capabilities”. General Raymond further stated that “we [NRO and USSPACECOM] have a shared concept of operations, we have a shared vision and a shared concept of operations. We train together, we exercise together, we man the same C2 center, if you will, at the National Space Defense Center."

In December 2019, the United States Space Force (USSF) was established, also helmed by John Raymond, now a Space Force General and Chief of Space Operations (CSO). NRO continued its close relationship with American military space operations, partnering with the Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to manage the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, which uses government and contract spacecraft to launch important government payloads. NSSL supports both the USSF and NRO, as well as the Navy. NRO Director Scolese has characterized his agency as critical to American space dominance, stating that NRO provides “unrivaled situational awareness and intelligence to the best imagery and signals data on the planet.”

In August 2021, “Scolese said he, Raymond, and Dickinson recently agreed to a Protect and Defend Strategic Framework covering national security in space and the relationship between DOD and the intelligence community on everything from acquisition to operations”.

Technology
NRO's technology is likely more advanced than its civilian equivalents. In the 1980s, the NRO had satellites and software that were capable of determining the exact dimensions of a tank gun. In 2012 the agency donated two space telescopes to NASA. Despite being stored unused, the instruments are superior to the Hubble Space Telescope. One journalist observed, "If telescopes of this caliber are languishing on shelves, imagine what they're actually using."

NMIS network
The NRO Management Information System (NMIS) is a computer network used to distribute NRO data classified as Top Secret. It is also known as the Government Wide Area Network (GWAN).

Sentient AI satellite control system
Sentient is an automated (artificial intelligence) intelligence analysis system under development by the National Reconnaissance Office. A principle purpose of the Sentient system is described by the NRO as compiling at machine, versus human speed, synthesis of complex distributed data sources for rapid analysis faster than humans can manage.

According to Robert Cardillo, a former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Sentient system is intended to use "automated inferencing" to aid intelligence collection. The Verge described Sentient as “an omnivorous analysis tool, capable of devouring data of all sorts, making sense of the past and present, anticipating the future, and pointing satellites toward what it determines will be the most interesting parts of that future.”

Spacecraft
The NRO maintains four main satellite constellations:
 * NRO SIGINT constellation
 * NRO GEOINT constellation
 * NRO Communications Relay constellation
 * NRO Reconnaissance constellation

The NRO spacecraft include:

GEOINT imaging

 * Keyhole series – Imagery intelligence:
 * KH-1, KH-2, KH-3, KH-4, KH-4A, KH-4B Corona (1959–1972)
 * KH-5 – Argon (1961–1962)
 * KH-6— Lanyard (1963)
 * KH-7 – Gambit (1963–1967)
 * KH-8 – Gambit (1966–1984)
 * KH-9 – Hexagon and Big Bird (1971–1986)
 * KH-10 – Dorian (cancelled)
 * KH-11 – Kennan (or Kennen), Crystal, Improved Crystal, Ikon, and Evolved Enhanced CRYSTAL System (1976–2013)
 * Samos – photo imaging (1960–1962)
 * Misty/Zirconic – stealth IMINT
 * Enhanced Imaging System
 * Next Generation Electro-Optical (NGEO), modular system, designed for incremental improvements (in development).

GEOINT radar

 * Lacrosse/Onyx – radar imaging (1988–)
 * TOPAZ (1–5) and TOPAZ Block 2

SIGINT

 * Samos-F – SIGINT (1962–1971)
 * Poppy – ELINT program (1962–1971) continuing Naval Research Laboratory's GRAB (1960–1961), PARCAE and Improved PARCAE (1976-2008)
 * Jumpseat (1971–1983) and Trumpet (1994–2008) SIGINT
 * Canyon (1968–1977), Vortex/Chalet (1978–1989) and Mercury (1994–1998) – SIGINT including COMINT
 * Rhyolite/Aquacade (1970–1978), Magnum/Orion (1985–1990), and Mentor (1995–2010) – SIGINT
 * NEMESIS (High Altitude)
 * ORION (High Altitude)
 * RAVEN (High Altitude)
 * INTRUDER (Low Altitude)
 * SIGINT High Altitude Replenishment Program (SHARP)

Space communications

 * Quasar, communications relay
 * NROL-1 through NROL-66 – various secret satellites. NROL stands for National Reconnaissance Office Launch.

This list is likely to be incomplete, given the classified nature of many NRO spacecraft.

Locations
In October 2008, NRO declassified five mission ground stations: three in the United States, near Washington, D.C.; Aurora, Colorado; and Las Cruces, New Mexico, and a presence at RAF Menwith Hill, UK, and at the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, Australia.

 * NRO Headquarters 38.882°N, -77.452°W – Chantilly, Virginia
 * National Reconnaissance Operations Center (NROC)
 * Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado (ADF-C) 39.718°N, -104.777°W, Buckley Space Force Base, Aurora, Colorado
 * Aerospace Data Facility-East (ADF-E) 38.736°N, -77.158°W, Fort Belvoir, Virginia
 * Aerospace Data Facility-Southwest (ADF-SW) 32.502°N, -106.611°W, White Sands, New Mexico
 * NRO spacecraft launch offices reside at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

In popular culture

 * The NRO is featured in Dan Brown's novel Deception Point.
 * Horror roleplaying game Delta Green features the "NRO section DELTA", a fictional black ops counter-intelligence section of the NRO controlled by Majestic 12 to hide the existence of UFOs and the supernatural. The Player characters can be agents of the NRO working with satellite intelligence, although not the ones in the "section DELTA" operations.
 * In the film Mammoth, they are the men in black.

title: National Reconnaissance Office