1836 - William S. Fisher reinforced Sam Houston's army with the company that he had raised, Company I, First Regiment of Texas Volunteers from Green DeWitt's colony at Gonzales. He was later to become Secretary of War for the Republic.
1846 - Fort Brown, originally called Fort Texas, was established when Zachary Taylor and the United States forces of occupation arrived on the Rio Grande on March 26, 1846, to establish the river as the southern boundary of Texas.
1861 - On this date in 1861, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America is ratified by the Texas Secession Committee.
1873 - HORRELL-HIGGINS FEUD. The Horrell and Higgins families were ranchers who settled in Lampasas County before the Civil War and were friends and neighbors until the 1870s. The five Horrell brothers-Mart, Tom, Merritt, Ben, and Sam-first got into trouble with the State Police in 1873, when Capt. Thomas Williams and seven men went to Lampasas to put a stop to the general lawlessness prevalent there. Williams fought with the Horrell boys and their brother-in-law, Bill Bowen, in Jerry Scott's saloon. When the fight was over, four state policemen were dead. Mart Horrell, badly wounded, was confined in the Georgetown jail, but as soon as he was well enough his brothers helped him to break out. [Note: for a fascinating read of the Wild West: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... /jch3.html ] [this is but one example of the many feuds that took place in Texas after the Civil War. ]
1875 - A party of Mexican raiders attacked Nuecestown. The raid can best be explained as part of a cycle of violence among Mexican citizens, Hispanic Texans, and Anglo Texans. By 1875 raids and murder were common on the part of both ethnic groups. In late March a number of men left Mexico in small groups and met about twenty miles from where the raid began. The Mexican raiders concentrated their efforts on Nuecestown and the surrounding area, but also hit other areas between Nuecestown and the Rio Grande.The raiders attacked homes, ranches, and stores, stealing horses and valuables, taking hostages, and killing several men. They attacked Thomas Noakes's store at Nuecestown on March 26 and Roma, in Starr County, on April 2. Soon thereafter the band crossed back into Mexico. Anglo residents of South Texas retaliated with a vengeance. Bands of volunteers organized "minute companies" and proceeded to hunt down Mexican outlaws, peaceful rancheros, and merchants; the avengers looted property and burned homes. Violence along the border would continue for years to come.
1918 - Texas Governor W.P.Hobby signed his name to a bill giving women in Texas the right to vote in all primary elections and nominating conventions. It would be the following year before Texas passes the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote in all elections.
1930 - Sandra Day O'Conner born this day in El Paso, Texas, She is the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.
1937 - A six foot statue of Popeye the Sailor was dedicated at the 2nd annual Spinach Festival in Crystal City. During the height of Popeye's popularity in the 1930s, spinach consumption in the United States increased by 33%. Crystal City is the center of the Spinach industry in Texas.
1943 - Assault, a highly decorated thoroughbred and winner of the Triple Crown, was born at the King Ranch on March 26, 1943. He was the foal of Bold Venture and Igual. His sire, Bold Venture, winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes in 1936, was directly related to Commando, the 1900 and 1901 Horse of the Year. His broodmare sire was Equipoise, the 1932 and 1933 Horse of the Year. Assault stood 15.3 hands tall and sported the markings of a forehead star and one white sock. Though assessed as average-looking by many in the racing establishment, the horse remained the only Texas-bred Triple Crown winner as of the early twenty-first century.
1945 - The battleship Texas supported the landings for the battle of Okinawa, the final great amphibious assault of World War II. The keel of the Texas, the second battleship to bear this name, was laid at Newport News, Virginia, on April 17, 1911. After serving in the Atlantic Fleet in the First World War, she supported the World War II landings in North Africa, Omaha Beach, southern France, and Iwo Jima. After more than thirty-four years of naval service she was retired and given to the state of Texas to be used as a memorial. She is permanently moored at the San Jacinto Monument off the Houston Ship Channel.
[ http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... /qtt2.html ]1948 - The American G.I. Forum was founded, when Dr. Hector P. Garcia and about 700 other Mexican-American veterans convened in Corpus Christi to organize the civil-rights organization. The organization's first concern was to secure benefits guaranteed by the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights. Then it expanded its efforts. The group established its reputation through its efforts on behalf of Felix Longoria, a soldier killed in the Philippines during the last days of World War II. The funeral director in Longoria's hometown of Three Rivers refused the use of the chapel for his funeral, because of Longoria's ethnicity. Also, the Three Rivers cemetery was segregated, and Longoria would have to be buried in the "Mexican" section. Due to appeals from Longoria's family and Garcia, then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson arranged for Longoria to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Feb. 16, 1949. The G.I. Forum, with the League of United Latin American Citizens, helped bring about a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that 14th Amendment protections apply to Mexican Americans. According to the Handbook of Texas Online, "In 1958 the forum became a national organization, and its members led Mexican Americans into national politics."
1959 - Retired General James E Rudder became the 16th President of Texas A&M University.