1.
San Antonio
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San Antonio, officially the City of San Antonio, is the seventh-most populated city in the United States and the second-most populous city in the state of Texas, with a population of 1,409,019. It was the fastest growing of the top 10 largest cities in the United States from 2000 to 2010, the city straddles South Texas and Central Texas and is on the southwestern corner of an urban megaregion known as the Texas Triangle. San Antonio serves as the seat of Bexar County, recent annexations have extended the citys boundaries into Medina County and, though for only a very tiny area near the city of Garden Ridge, into Comal County. Due to its placement, the city has characteristics of other urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas. San Antonio is the center of the San Antonio–New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area, growth along the Interstate 35 and Interstate 10 corridors to the north, west and east make it likely that the metropolitan area will continue to expand. San Antonio was named for Saint Anthony of Padua, whose feast day is on June 13, the city contains five 18th-century Spanish frontier missions, including The Alamo and San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, which were designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2015. Other notable attractions include the River Walk, the Tower of the Americas, the Alamo Bowl, the city is home to the five-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs and hosts the annual San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, one of the largest such events in the country. The U. S. Kelly Air Force Base operated out of San Antonio until 2001, the remaining portions of the base were developed as Port San Antonio, an industrial/business park and aerospace complex. San Antonio is home to six Fortune 500 companies and the South Texas Medical Center, at the time of European encounter, Payaya Indians lived near the San Antonio River Valley in the San Pedro Springs area, calling the vicinity Yanaguana, meaning refreshing waters. In 1691, a group of Spanish Catholic explorers and missionaries came upon the river and Payaya settlement on June 13 and they named the place and river San Antonio in his honor. It was years before any Spanish settlement took place, father Antonio de Olivares visited the site in 1709, and he was determined to found a mission and civilian settlement there. He directed Martin de Alarcón, the governor of Coahuila and Texas, differences between Alarcón and Olivares resulted in delays, and construction did not start until 1718. The families who clustered around the presidio and mission formed the beginnings of Villa de Béjar, on May 1, the governor transferred ownership of the Mission San Antonio de Valero to Fray Antonio de Olivares. On May 5,1718 he commissioned the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar on the west side of the San Antonio River, one-fourth league from the mission. On February 14,1719, the Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo proposed to the king of Spain that 400 families be transported from the Canary Islands, Galicia, or Havana to populate the province of Texas. By June 1730,25 families had reached Cuba, and 10 families had sent to Veracruz before orders from Spain came to stop the re-settlement. Under the leadership of Juan Leal Goraz, the group marched overland from Veracruz to the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, due to marriages along the way, the party now included 15 families, a total of 56 persons. They joined the community established in 1718
2.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Battle of the Alamo
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The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, Santa Annas cruelty during the battle inspired many Texians—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texian Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21,1836, several months previously, Texians had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texians were then garrisoned at the Alamo, the Texian force grew slightly with the arrival of reinforcements led by eventual Alamo co-commanders James Bowie and William B. On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexicans marched into San Antonio de Béxar as the first step in a campaign to retake Texas, for the next 10 days, the two armies engaged in several skirmishes with minimal casualties. Aware that his garrison could not withstand an attack by such a force, Travis wrote multiple letters pleading for more men and supplies. In the early morning hours of March 6, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo, after repelling two attacks, the Texians were unable to fend off a third attack. As Mexican soldiers scaled the walls, most of the Texian soldiers withdrew into interior buildings, Defenders unable to reach these points were slain by the Mexican cavalry as they attempted to escape. Between five and seven Texians may have surrendered, if so, most eyewitness accounts reported between 182 and 257 Texians died, while most historians of the Alamo agree that around 600 Mexicans were killed or wounded. Several noncombatants were sent to Gonzales to spread word of the Texian defeat, within Mexico, the battle has often been overshadowed by events from the Mexican–American War of 1846–48. In 19th-century Texas, the Alamo complex gradually became known as a battle rather than a former mission. The Texas Legislature purchased the land and buildings in the part of the 20th century. The Alamo is now the most popular tourist site in Texas, the Alamo has been the subject of numerous non-fiction works beginning in 1843. Under President Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican government began to shift away from a federalist model, the increasingly dictatorial policies, including the revocation of the Constitution of 1824 in early 1835, incited many federalists to revolt. The border region of Mexican Texas was largely populated by immigrants from the United States and these people were accustomed to a federalist government and to extensive individual rights, and they were quite vocal in their displeasure at Mexicos shift towards centralism. In October, Texians engaged Mexican troops in the first official battle of the Texas Revolution, determined to quell the rebellion, Santa Anna began assembling a large force, the Army of Operations in Texas, to restore order. Most of his soldiers were raw recruits, and a number had been forcibly conscripted. The Texians systematically defeated the Mexican troops already stationed in Texas, the last group of Mexican soldiers in the region—commanded by Santa Annas brother-in-law, General Martín Perfecto de Cos—surrendered on December 9 following the siege of Béxar
5.
Alamo Mission in San Antonio
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The Alamo Mission in San Antonio is commonly called The Alamo and was originally known as Misión San Antonio de Valero. It was founded in the 18th century as a Roman Catholic mission and fortress compound and it was the site of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and is now a museum in the Alamo Plaza Historic District. The compound was one of the early Spanish missions in Texas, the mission was secularized in 1793 and then abandoned. Ten years later, it became a housing the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras military unit. During the Texas Revolution, Mexican General Martin Perfecto de Cos surrendered the fort to the Texian Army in December 1835, a relatively small number of Texian soldiers then occupied the compound for several months. They were wiped out at the Battle of the Alamo on March 6,1836, when the Mexican army retreated from Texas several months later, they tore down many of the Alamo walls and burned some of the buildings. For the next five years, the Alamo was periodically used to garrison soldiers, in 1849, several years after Texas was annexed to the United States, the U. S. Army began renting the facility for use as a quartermasters depot. The U. S. Army abandoned the mission in 1876 after nearby Fort Sam Houston was established, the Alamo chapel was sold to the state of Texas, which conducted occasional tours but made no effort to restore it. The remaining buildings were sold to a company which operated them as a wholesale grocery store. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas formed in 1895 and began trying to preserve the Alamo, Adina Emilia De Zavala and Clara Driscoll successfully convinced the state legislature in 1905 to purchase the remaining buildings and to name the DRT as the permanent custodian of the site. Over the next century, periodic attempts were made to control of the Alamo from the DRT. In early 2015, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush officially removed control of the Alamo to the Texas General Land Office, the Alamo and the four missions in the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites on July 5,2015. In 1716, the Spanish government established several Roman Catholic missions in East Texas, the isolation of the missions—the nearest Spanish settlement, San Juan Bautista, Coahuila was over 400 miles away—made it difficult to keep them adequately provisioned. To assist the missionaries, the new governor of Spanish Texas, Martín de Alarcón, in April 1718, Alarcón led an expedition to found a new community in Texas. On May 1, the group erected a temporary mud, brush, one mile north of the mission, Alarcón built a presidio, the Presidio San Antonio de Bexar. Close by, he founded the first civilian community in Texas, within a year, the mission moved to the western bank of the river, where it was less likely to flood. Over the next years, a chain of missions were established nearby. In 1724, after remants of a Gulf Coast hurricane destroyed the structures at Mission San Antonio de Valero
6.
Austin, Texas
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Austin is the capital of the U. S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. It is the 11th-most populous city in the U. S. and it is the fastest growing large city in the United States and the second most populous capital city after Phoenix, Arizona. As of the U. S. Census Bureaus July 1,2015 estimate and it is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 2,056,405 as of July 1,2016. In the 1830s, pioneers began to settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River, in 1839, the site was officially chosen to replace Houston as the new capital of the Republic of Texas and was incorporated under the name Waterloo. Shortly thereafter, the name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas and the republics first secretary of state. The city subsequently grew throughout the 19th century and became a center for government and education with the construction of the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin. After a lull in growth from the Great Depression, Austin resumed its development into a city and, by the 1980s, it emerged as a center for technology. A number of Fortune 500 companies have headquarters or regional offices in Austin, including Amazon. com, cisco, eBay, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle Corporation, Texas Instruments, 3M, and Whole Foods Market. Dells worldwide headquarters is located in nearby Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, residents of Austin are known as Austinites. They include a mix of government employees, college students, musicians, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers. The city also adopted Silicon Hills as a nickname in the 1990s due to an influx of technology. In the late 1800s, Austin was known as the City of the Violet Crown because of the glow of light across the hills just after sunset. Even today, many Austin businesses use the term Violet Crown in their name, Austin is known as a clean-air city for its stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places and buildings, including restaurants and bars. The FBI ranked Austin as the second-safest major city in the U. S. for the year 2012, U. S. News & World Report named Austin the best place to live in the U. S. in 2017. Austin, Travis County and Williamson County have been the site of habitation since at least 9200 BC. When settlers arrived from Europe, the Tonkawa tribe inhabited the area, the Comanches and Lipan Apaches were also known to travel through the area. Spanish colonists, including the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition, traveled through the area for centuries, in 1730, three missions from East Texas were combined and reestablished as one mission on the south side of the Colorado River, in what is now Zilker Park, in Austin. The mission was in area for only about seven months
7.
Pompeo Coppini
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Pompeo Luigi Coppini was an Italian born sculptor who emigrated to the United States. Although his works can be found in Italy, Mexico and a number of American states and he is particularly famous for the Alamo Plaza work Spirit of Sacrifice a. k. a. The Alamo Cenotaph, as well as numerous statues honoring Texas heroes and he was born in Moglia, Mantua, Italy, the son of musician Giovanni Coppini and his wife Leandra Coppini. The family moved to Florence where at the age of ten, from there, he worked for a sculptor who made tourist knock-offs of great works of art. At age sixteen, he studied at Accademia dellArte del Disegno under Augusto Rivalta, upon earning a degree, Coppini opened a short-lived studio making gratis busts of local celebrities. While working for a cemetery monument sculptor, Coppini tried to become co-owner of the business by courting the owners daughter, the girls mother balked, and the resulting situation got Coppini denounced from a local priests pulpit. He emigrated to the United States in March,1896 with nothing but a trunk of clothes, Coppini got a job in New York sculpting figures for a wax museum. Elizabeth di Barbieri of New Haven, Connecticut arrived, accompanied by a chaperone and he fell in love and married his model. Coppini became a United States citizen in 1902, while he managed to find work in New York, Coppini was frustrated the fame and greatness escaped him. He moved to Texas in 1901, to join with Germany-born sculptor Frank Teich and he was then commissioned to do the figures for the Confederate monument for the state capitol grounds. For the next fifteen years, he lived and worked in San Antonio, after spending a short time in Chicago, Illinois, he then spent three years in New York City overseeing the Littlefield commission for the University of Texas at Austin. He collaborated with architect Paul Cret on the Littlefield Memorial Fountain, by 1910, Coppini was assisted by sculptor Waldine Tauch, who had been born in Schulenburg, Texas. Tauch became more-or-less his adopted daughter, student and protégée, and he, after extracting a promise from her that she would never marry and she collaborated with Coppini until his death. Firing Line, in De Leon Plaza, Hiring Otto Zirkel of near the San Antonio studio to build the portion of the monument. He sculpted three distinct statues of George Washington, the Mexican Civil War was just beginning. Two years later, in reaction to the April 1914 United States invasion of Veracruz, the second statue was created to commemorate the 1926 sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. It was installed in 1927 in Portland, Oregon, the third statue was commissioned by the Texas Society, Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate the 1932 bicentennial of Washingtons birth. Fund-raising problems delayed the project for years, and it was installed in February 1955 on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, in 1931, Italy decorated Coppini with the Commendatore of the Order of the Crown of Italy for his contribution to art in America
8.
Maury Maverick
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Fontaine Maury Maverick was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas, representing the 20th district from January 3,1935, to January 3,1939. He is best remembered for his independence from the party and for coining the term gobbledygook for obscure, Maverick was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Albert and Jane Lewis Maverick. His grandparents were Samuel Maverick, one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence and the source of the word maverick and he studied at Texas Military Institute, the Virginia Military Institute, and the University of Texas. Maverick was admitted to the bar in 1916 and practiced law in San Antonio and he was a first lieutenant in the infantry in World War I and earned the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. In the 1920s, he was involved in the lumber and mortgage businesses, from 1929 to 1931, he was the elected tax collector for Bexar County. He was elected to the Seventy-fourth Congress in 1934, with support from the Hispanic population of his district, during his 1934 campaign, Maverick enlisted Lyndon Johnson, a then little-known congressional secretary, to work for him during the Democratic primary. In the House, he was an ardent champion of Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal and he angered the conservative Democrats running the party back in Texas, including John Nance Garner. He was defeated in the primary for a term in 1938. He returned to Texas where he was elected Mayor of San Antonio, again with support from minority voters, serving from 1939 to 1941, when he was labeled a Communist and defeated. During World War II, he worked for the Office of Price Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and served on the War Production Board, after the war, he practiced law in San Antonio. Maverick was a cousin of congressmen Abram Poindexter Maury and John W and he married Terrell Louise Dobbs and had a daughter and a son, San Antonio newspaper editorialist Maury Maverick, Jr. Maverick died on June 7,1954. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, out of Step, Maury Maverick and the Politics of the Depression and the New Deal. University of Texas at Austin,1989, Austin, University of Texas Press,1970. Weiss, Stuart L. “Maury Maverick and the Liberal Bloc” Journal of American History 57, American Notes & Queries, Gobbledygook talk, Maury Mavericks name for the long high-sounding words of Washingtons red-tape language,1944. Tuscaloosa News, of Alabama, The explanation sounds like gobbledeegook to me,1945, fontaine Maury Maverick from the Handbook of Texas Online <--Broken link Sept 2015 Maury Family Tree by Sue West Teague. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Maury Maverick at Find a Grave
9.
Sam Houston
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Samuel Sam Houston was an American politician and soldier, best known for his role in bringing Texas into the United States as a constituent state. His victory at the Battle of San Jacinto secured the independence of Texas from Mexico in one of the shortest decisive battles in modern history, Houston was born at Timber Ridge Plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia. After moving to Tennessee, he spent time with the Cherokee Nation, performed service during the War of 1812. In 1827, Houston was elected Governor of Tennessee as a Jacksonian, in 1829, he resigned as governor and relocated to the Arkansas Territory. In 1832, Houston was involved in an altercation with a U. S. Congressman, shortly afterwards, he moved west to Coahuila y Tejas, then a Mexican state, and became a leader of the Texas Revolution. After the war, Houston became a key figure in Texas and was elected as the first and he supported annexation by the United States and upon achieving it in 1845, he became a U. S. As governor, he refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy when Texas seceded from the Union in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War, to avoid bloodshed, he refused an offer of a Union army to put down the Confederate rebellion. Instead, he retired to Huntsville, Texas, where he died before the end of the war, Houstons name has been honored in numerous ways. He is the namesake of the city of Houston, Texass most populous city, Sam Houston was the fifth son of Major Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton. Houstons paternal ancestry is traced to his great-great grandfather Sir John Houston. His second son, John Houston, emigrated to Ulster, Ireland, under the system of primogeniture, he did not inherit the estate. A historic plaque near Larne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland tells the story of the Houston family and it is located in Ballyboley Forest Park near the site of the original John Houston estate. After several years in Ireland, John Houston immigrated in 1735 with his family to the North American colonies, Houston decided to migrate south with other Scots-Irish, who settled in the backcountry of lands in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Scots-Irish newcomers included the Lyle family of the Raloo area, who helped found Timber Ridge Presbyterian Church, gradually, John Houston developed his land and purchased slaves. His son, Robert, inherited his fathers land, the youngest of Roberts five sons was Samuel Houston. Samuel Houston became a member of Morgans Rifle Brigade and was commissioned a major during the American Revolutionary War, at the time, militia officers were expected to pay their own expenses. He had married Elizabeth Paxton and inherited his fathers land, but he was not a manager and got into debt. Their children were born on his familys plantation near Timber Ridge Church, including Sam Houston on March 2,1793, the fifth of nine children and the fifth son
