Evel Knievel

Born in the mining town of Butte, Montana October 17, 1938, Robert Craig Knievel was raised by his grandparents. At age eight he saw Joey Chitwood's Auto Daredevil Show, which he credits for his later career choice to become a motorcycle daredevil.

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School he went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1957 and to play with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959. He then formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

He worked in the copper mines as a contract miner, skip tender and diamond drill operator. After a stint in the US Army where he pole vaulted and ran the 220 on the Army track team, he ran his own hunting guide service in Montana.

In 1962 Knievel broke his collarbone and shoulder in a motorcycle race. While on the mend he took a job as a salesman for the Combined Insurance Company of America, selling in one week a record total of 271 policies. He later opened several Honda dealerships in Washington state, drumming up business by offering $100 off of the price of a motorcycle to anyone who could beat him at arm wrestling.

In 1965 he began his daredevil career when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 miles an hour behind dragster race cars holding on to a parachute. In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the Western states. Evel did everything himself, including truck driving, ramp erecting, promoting and performing his ever longer and more dangerous motorcycle jumps.

In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps. He steadily increased the length of the jumps and then on New Years Day 1968, he jumped 151 feet across the fountains in front of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Successfully clearing the fountains, his landing was a disaster, and his injuries put him in the hospital in a coma for 30 days. While recovering, he decided to make it his goal to jump the Grand Canyon. In the next few years the payment for his performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London and over $6 million for the Snake River Canyon jump.

International media attention to Evel's heroic, death-defying feats and his popular messages to the world's youth, promoting abstention from drugs and a healthy lifestyle with a positive mental attitude quickly transformed him into a National Icon. His motorcycle and memorabilia display by the Smithsonian Institute in their Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has immortalized him as America's Legendary Daredevil.