Texas
Story Stream
How Independence was Celebrated in Early Texas July 04, 2024
Celebrating July 4, also known as Independence Day, a majority of Texas residents enjoyed the holiday with traditional picnics, barbeques, family gatherings, and perhaps an outing to a lake or river. Of course, the evening hours are devoted to shooti...
The Worst Hurricanes in American History July 02, 2024
Galveston Hurricane, 1900: With a population of 40,000, the booming port of Galveston was the largest city in Texas when this Category 4 storm hit. The Great Galveston Hurricane would go down as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, killing...
Saving Houston’s LGBTQ History Through Radio Archives June 07, 2024
For years, hundreds of fragile cassette tapes sat quietly aging in a storage locker in Houston, Texas. Each plastic case contained hours of radio shows, made for and by LGBTQ people....
Confronting Another Axis? June 05, 2024
Drawing on his extensive experience as a historian and diplomat, Philip Zelikow warns that the United States faces an exceptionally volatile time in global politics and that the period of maximum danger might be in the next one to three years. He hig...
Here's What Happened During the Third Crusade June 08, 2023
The news of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem reached Europe via the bishop of Tyre. The pope heard the news and died. The next pope issued a crusading bull, but only reigned two months before he himself died. Yet there was enthusiasm for a crus...
NFL Would Never Have Flourished Without AFL June 08, 2023
How The AFL Made The NFL What It Is Today SHARE TWEET EMAILBy Steve Rivera | September 19, 2022 9:14 am ET It’s impossible to watch the NFL in 2022 without knowing the history of the league. Before ESPN, the NFL Network, or Super Bowl Sunday, the lea...
Elvis Hasn't Quite Left These Buildings June 07, 2023
What is it about Elvis Presley that keeps his image burning so brightly in our culture's consciousness? In the decades following his death, the singer—who would have turned 80 on January 8—has been elevated to levels bordering on the religious: the s...
Texas' Role in Capturing Goering, Other Top Nazis May 09, 2023
As noteworthy as the Division's battle feats over a period of twenty months was the magnitude of the enemy leaders it captured during the last few days of the war. Three of these captives, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundste...
Some Dubbed This Eighth Wonder of the World April 07, 2023
From a glass-enclosed box near the 474-foot-long electronic scoreboard, Kubla Khan surveys his stately pleasure dome, talking about $37 million worth of detail in a kind of Texas "poor boy" lingo. Only the scene isn't Xanadu, it is Houston, and Kubla...
Houston Won, But Wasn't a Great General March 14, 2023
If you seek humility, write a book. In 1994 I witnessed the publication of my monograph,Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution. By the modest standards of academic publishing the book has enjoyed healthy sales —although they cause T...
'Beavis and Butt-Head' Call Out America March 10, 2023
definitely had a chip on my shoulder about the mainstream entertainment world not understanding Texas,” Mike Judge says. His voice over the phone is thoughtful and unhurried, the opposite of his cartoon alter ids Beavis and Butt-head, although there’...
90 Minutes and the Fall of the Alamo March 03, 2023
The fall of the Alamo has but one peer in the brilliant son of its glory. Thermopylae and the Alamo are side by side on the imperishable tables of history; the names of Leonidas and Travis are synonymous for heroism. The modern altar of liberty almos...
There Was No Single Reason Texas Left Mexico March 02, 2023
Volumes sufficient to fill multiple warehouses have been written about the Texas Revolution of 1836 in the century and a half since it culminated in the seventeen minute Battle of San Jacinto. Few topics have inspired such polarized feelings. Many bl...
Texas Declaration of Independence March 01, 2023
This Man Was at Every Key Civil War Battle February 28, 2023
Samuel W. Crawford, M.D. was about to enjoy the comforts of civilization on a September morning in 1860. An Army surgeon, he’d spent the past 10 years at posts in the “frontier” of the country, such as Texas and New Mexico. But now he was visiting fr...
Did Branch Davidians Actually Need to Be Saved? February 28, 2023
This week marks the 25th anniversary of one of the strangest and most tragic incidents in American religious history: the bloody ending of the siege between FBI agents and members of the Branch Davidian religious group in Waco, Texas.For many people,...
What Zimmermann Telegram Said and How Code Was Cracked February 24, 2023
On January 17, 1917, British code breakers in Room 40, the cryptoanalysis office of Great Britain's Naval Intelligence, intercepted a telegram from Germany. At first, they suspected the coded message was a routine communication. But, soon enough, the...
This Man Is WHY We 'Remember the Alamo!' February 22, 2023
The Battle of the Alamo holds a heroic place in American lore, nearly 200 years after its defenders were slaughtered by bullets and bayonets. "The garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken," Alamo commander Lt. Col. William Barrett Tr...
How Confederates Didn't Win Southwest February 21, 2023
After the war, W.P. Laughter, a private in the 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles, described the morning of the battle of Valverde:“As we were marching along with some glee at the prospect of getting a square drink of water, of which the cottonwood trees near ...
Understanding Why Sam Houston Opposed Secession February 02, 2023
When the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolutionary War, returned for a tour of the young United States in 1824–25 — just ahead of the 50th anniversary of independence — he resided in the Washington area at Gadsby’s Tavern in...
Spindletop No. 1 Gusher Ushers in New Way of Life January 10, 2023
Black Gold BeginningsLyne T. Barret and George Dullnig may have wished they had had better luck in the oil business.In 1866, Barret drilled the first oil-producing well in Texas near present-day Nacogdoches. He struck black gold at 106 feet and produ...
Comprehensive Look at the Taking of America January 06, 2023
A pile of stones in arid Skeleton Canyon, Arizona marks the place where the last war for America ended. But the highway marker commemorating Apache warrior Geronimo’s surrender to General Nelson A. Miles, United States Army, in 1886, is placed ten mi...
How Long Does It Take for a Body to Decompose? January 05, 2023
The moment a person dies, their body begins to break down as cells wither and bacteria invade. But how long does it take for a body to fully decompose? Although the process of decomposition starts within minutes of death, there are a number of variab...
Prof. Nimitz and Birth of ROTC January 03, 2023
The Great War had shown that the U.S. Navy couldn't meet the demands for officers during a rapid expansion of the force; an experiment with a three-month cram course called the “Midshipman School” was not very effective. The force needed a cadre of t...
Jack Ruby Was a Prig Who Wanted Attention January 03, 2023
All I know about the best man in my wedding is he didn’t exist. Five days before John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, I got married for the second time. It was a Sunday, the day after I’d covered the SMU-Arkansas game at the Cotton Bowl, and J...
