LEGENDS: There are some people throughout history who have become legends through books, movies or various retellings of their escapades.

John Henry “Doc” Holliday was one of those people. A gambler, vagabond, gentleman and gunfighter, the friend to Wyatt Earp was a dentist by trade. On March 1, 1872, in Philadelphia, he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery with a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree.

Shortly after, he began work in the office of Dr. Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta, Ga. He was educated and respected, but gained a reputation as a hothead.

Not long after starting work, he discovered he had tuberculosis, likely having contracted it from his mother before she died of the same condition in 1866. His adopted brother also died from the disease, so Doc Holliday may have contracted it from him, according to LegendsofAmerica.com

He visited several doctors and was told he had only a short time to live. He was encouraged to move to a dryer climate. He moved to Dallas, Texas in 1873, and worked with Dr. John A. Seegar as a dentist. As his coughing spells increased, his business dropped off.

He turned to gambling to make a living, and practiced with his six shooter and his knife as a means of protection. And then came gunfights and moving around Texas until he killed a soldier from Fort Richardson in a gunfight, and the U.S. government started actively pursuing him.

He moved around the west, meeting Earp and at one point saving his life before the famed gunfight at Tombstone with the Clantons, and the subsequent ride with Wyatt Earp to get revenge for his brother’s death.

Holliday died on Nov. 8, 1887, in the Hotel Glenwood. He had awakened, drank a glass of whiskey, looked down at his bare feet and said, “This is funny” and died. He always figured he would be killed with his boots on.