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The OK Corral shooting in Tombstone, Arizona involved the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday against the Clanton and McLaury families. Three cowboys were killed and tensions had been growing prior to the event. The Earps were eventually found not guilty of murder, but there is controversy surrounding their actions. After the shooting, Morgan and Virgil Earp were targeted and Wyatt and Doc went on a revengeful rampage.
The OK Corral shooting was a famous Old West shooting that has become a part of American pop culture. The gunfight involved Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, who were famous lawmen, and aiding them in the fight was a card-playing dentist from the state of Georgia with a violent reputation named Doc Holiday. On the other side were a group of cowboys including Billy and Ike Clanton, Tom McLaury and his brother Frank, along with Billy Claiborne. The lawmen were attempting to disarm the cowboys and three of the cowboys were killed in the shootout. It happened in October of 1881 and the place was Tombstone, Arizona.
Prior to the OK Corral shooting, there had been growing tensions between the Earp Brothers and the Clanton and McLaury families, who owned major ranches in the area. Virgil Earp was the only official lawman in the family at the time and stood in for his brothers. The group had banned guns in the city limits, and this had already caused altercations with the Clantons. Doc Holiday, who was friends with the Earps, had also had a run-in with Ike Clanton that nearly escalated into a gunfight.
The Clanton brothers and McLaury, along with Billy Claiborne, reunited at the OK Corral. The Earps decided it was time to confront them and attempt to disarm them. Doc Holiday accompanied them, carrying a rifle. No one knows who fired the first shot, but by the end of the fight, both McClaurys were dead, as was Billy Clanton. On the other side, everyone survived, but everyone was injured except Wyatt.
There are some who think the Earps were using their badges to perform an act that was equivalent to a gang hit. Some modern historians have viewed the battle this way, and there were people at the time who felt the same way. The Earps actually had to stand trial for murder, but were eventually found not guilty. Wyatt and his brothers eventually became heroes as a result of this fight and most dramatizations have shown them in a positive light, but there is still much controversy surrounding the politics and reasoning for the battle.
After the fight at the OK Corral, there was an eventful sequel. Morgan and Virgil Earp were both victims of assassination attempts. Virgil was wounded and Morgan was killed. Wyatt and Doc would go on a revengeful rampage later, killing many of the people responsible without any real legal authority.
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