“Now I, Nebuchadezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways are just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.” —Daniel 4:37

Vladimir Putin Elected President of Russia,
March 26, 2000

was born in 1952, about one month before Vladimir Putin, current President of Russia. We both grew up on stories of the Second World War, but his stories were very different from the ones I heard. His father was one of only several survivors of his regiment defending their home city of Leningrad, (a city to be renamed St. Petersburg, after the Apostle, following the fall of the USSR). He likely survived by his providential severe wounding and being dragged to safety. He limped the rest of his life, but a million civilians and hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers at Leningrad had no rest of their life when the Germans withdrew from the nine-hundred-day siege. His mother eked out existence during that battle, barely surviving starvation and disease. All of Putin’s uncles died defending their homeland.

Putin in 1960 at age 8

German troops in the suburbs of Leningrad with abandoned household equipment and a burning church in the background, September 1941

Raised in relative poverty by a Russian Orthodox Christian mother of forty-one who had him secretly baptized, and a hard-working secular atheist father, Putin overcame bullying in school to become a superb athlete and Judo champion, above average student, especially in his study of history and German language, as well as university graduate, lawyer, and dedicated officer of the Russian Secret Service (KGB), beginning in 1975 at age twenty-three. After special training in Moscow, he served in East Germany, likely performing important clandestine work during the collapse of that failed state and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. He left the KGB (if that is actually possible) after ten years or so and hitched his political star to up-and-coming St. Petersburg politicians of influence and skill. In 1996 he returned to graduate school and concentrated on understanding the economic potential of Russia’s natural resources. Whether Putin had the intellectual acumen to write his thesis or not, he appears to have been seeking to discover ways to better the economic strength of the nation, and likely connect with the “oligarchs” who controlled important industries.

Putin in KGB (Russian Secret Service) uniform, 1980

Putin at the dedication of the Wall of Grief (or Wall of Sorrows) monument in Moscow to the victims of political persecution by Joseph Stalin during the country’s Soviet era, unveiled on October 30, 2017—the annual Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions

Our understanding and knowledge of the specifics of President Putin’s rise to prominence in the 1990s and the lineaments of his thinking on a range of issues depends on which biography or position paper that you read, or journalist you believe. Although Russia set the standard for propaganda and misinformation in the 20th Century and beyond, almost every country in the EU, as well as the United States, are led by leftist, globalist governments whose political and social agendas are inimical to Russia and Russian interests. The major western media is controlled by or heavily influenced by leftist ideologues whose social agendas are responsive to corporate or government pressure and propaganda. One example, cited in a recent article by Marcia Christoff, illustrates one of the reasons today for the hatred of Putin and Russia by American elites:

“While the U.S. is demoralized by identity and gender politics, professors and teachers fear for their careers in the event of using the wrong pronoun, and men and women are increasingly hostile or sterile toward each other, Russia is, shall we say, old-school. By law, the country does not permit what it calls “gay propaganda” (for example, exhibitions and events cannot be publicly advertised as gay, nor are “parades” allowed, etc.), and marriage is officially defined in the constitution of the country as that between a man and a woman. (Specifically, a constitutional amendment of 2020 is defined as “a defense of the institution of marriage as a union of a man and a woman; the creation of conditions for a decent upbringing of children in the family, as well as for the responsibilities of adult children to care for parents.” The U.S. State Department responded by hanging a rainbow flag outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.)”

Because of his “competence and loyalty,” Putin had been able to rise in the bureaucracy of the Kremlin, even as President Boris Yeltsin’s influence and leadership waned, the economic difficulties of Russia increased, and a violent radical Muslim rebellion in Chechnya resisted any non-violent solutions. In July 1998, Putin accepted the appointment, the first and last civilian, to be head of the FSB, the Russian Security Service that had replaced the KGB in 1991. Viewed as an upstart and an outsider, Putin appointed old comrades he could trust, and immersed himself in the work of rooting out spies, abolishing outdated departments, reducing “political corruption,” and investigating billionaire oligarchs.

Putin in 1998 as Federal Security Service Director

Russian President Boris Yeltsin (right) announced his early resignation as head of state and the temporary transfer of his powers to Prime Minister Putin (left)

As President Boris Yeltsin’s health continued to decline in the late 90s, and the controversies surrounding his leadership became more complex, he appointed Vladimir Putin Prime Minister, just four months before the next election of the Duma in December, 1999. On December 14, Yeltsin, in a private meeting, convinced Putin to accept the Presidency on an interim basis upon Yeltsin’s resignation, which would prove a shock to both Russia and the world. According to Yeltsin, the forty-eight-year-old Putin hesitated, calling it “a rather difficult destiny.” On December 30, Yeltsin resigned and named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as acting President of Russia. On March 26, 2000 he went from Acting President to Elected President with 53% of the vote.

Putin taking the oath of office of President of Russia, with retiring President Yeltsin looking on

President Putin has served as leader of Russia for the past twenty-two years, in which time he has transformed that historic nation, reviving their pride in their past heroes and greatness, renewing the power and influence of the Orthodox Church and aspects of Christian ethics on a national scale. He has also influenced Russia as a major exporter of many products necessary for world industry, like oil and natural gas, nickel, platinum, zinc and gold, etc. He has also accumulated many enemies at home and abroad.

President Putin at an Orthodox Christmas service at the Church of the Intercession
of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Turginovo

His restoration of pride in Russia’s pre-communist past, refusal to adopt or sanction the depraved cultural mores of the pagan western world, and continued resistance to NATO’s encroachment on the bordering states vital to Russia’s self-defense, has brought him and his nation into conflict with the United States. His willingness to actually act on the consequences of Western imperialists’ backing of the Ukrainian figurehead, has taken east-west relations to a whole new level of outrage. Admire him, hate him, or wonder how providence placed Vladimir Putin in power in the complex and byzantine political leadership of Russia, he will have proven to be one of the most important of historical figures when his western counterparts are irrelevant footnotes at best.

Official Portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, 2012

• The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers (2015), is an interesting biography that lays out the basic known information of Putin’s life, and is neither admiring nor supportive. The cover image is from the same angle that Stalin liked to be photographed. Myers is a New York Times journalist who spent seven years in Russia during Putin’s rise to power.

Image Credits: 1 Putin at age 8 (Wikipedia.org) 2 Leningrad, 1941 (Wikipedia.org) 3 KGB (Wikipedia.org) 4 Wall of Grief (Wikipedia.org) 5 Federal Security Service (Wikipedia.org) 6 Yeltsin resignation (Wikipedia.org) 7 Putin inauguration (Wikipedia.org) 8 Christmas service (Wikipedia.org) 9 Official portrait (Wikipedia.org)

“Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth.” —Luke 2:1

“…but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law…” —Galatians 4:4

Julius Caesar’s Assassination, March 15, 44 BC

um esset Caesar in citeriore Gallia. . . and so begins De Bello Gallico, The War in Gaul by Julius Caesar. It has often been the first Latin translated by every school-boy and girl for hundreds of years.

Julius Caesar (100-44 BC)

He is the most famous Roman emperor of all time, not just because he conquered Gaul, became the first emperor, and put an effective end to the Republic, but because he also caught the imagination of a 17th-century English playwright named William Shakespeare. The great poet and playwright took the historical bones of Caesar’s end and breathed life into him in a most dramatic way, an accomplishment that has stood the test of time and delighted audiences and readers for more than 400 years. Caesar’s final words et tu Brute’ put the final touch on the tragedy, and entered the English language as a trope. The truth of Caesar’s life, his astounding accomplishments, his brilliant erudition, and the future he established by his seizure of power changed history and is well worth our reflection upon today.

Dated sometime between 50 and 40 BC, this bust of Julius Caesar—known as The Tusculum portrait based on the location of its discovery—is thought to be the only surviving likeness of him made during his lifetime

Charlton Heston plays Mark Antony in a 1950 rendition of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, illustrating the play’s enduring popularity

Caesar was born to a Patrician family and named after his father Gaius Julius Caesar who was governor of Asia. Young Caesar became the head of his family at sixteen, but lost his own position as a high priest of Jupiter after his Uncle Marius found himself on the losing end of a war with a rival, General Sulla. Bereft of his inheritance and punished for not divorcing his wife Cornelia, Julius Caesar embarked on a military career, a choice he later attributed to the divine providence of the gods. His new career was marked by an amazing series of adventures and excitement—for instance, capture by pirates, release through payment of a ransom, and return with a fleet to capture and crucify his former captors. He followed the Roman road to power through election as a military tribune, then as a quaestor, in 69 BC. As a brilliant and companionable Roman official, Caesar achieved public acclaim by sponsoring successful public games and was elected Pontifex Maximus, Rome’s chief priest, and shortly after, as praetor in Hispania. He retired as a most successful and popular governor in 62 BC, age thirty-eight.

Cornelia Cinna (c. 97 – c. 69 BC) wife of Julius Caesar

Gaius Marius (c. 157-86 BC) uncle of Julius Caesar by marriage to Julia, Caesar’s aunt

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 BC), won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and seized power by force

From about 500 BC to 27 BC Rome was governed as a republic. Elected Senators oversaw the expansion of Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean world, first in conquest of the tribes of the Italian peninsula, then tragic wars against Greece and Carthage. Despite defeats and other setbacks, the Senate proved remarkably stable and resilient. In the century before the coming of Christ, various Roman generals vied for favor and dominance. None succeeded like Gaius Julius Caesar.

The Last Senate of Julius Caesar, by Raffaele Giannetti.
For centuries, Rome was governed as a republic by elected Senators.

Elected as consul, Caesar joined two other powerful politicians in ruling Rome as “The First Triumvirate.” When his term ended, the talented official acquired the governorship of Gaul and with it, four legions of professional soldiers. As commanding general, Caesar led his forces from one triumph to the next over rebellious tribes, recounting it all in detail in what would become the military classic, The War in Gaul. The historian Plutarch recorded that Caesar conquered three million enemies, killing and enslaving up to two million, including initial forays into Britain.

Plutarch (c. 46 – c. 119 AD) Greek philosopher and historian

The surrender of the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix to Caesar after the defeat of the Gauls at the Battle of Alesia (52 BC)

In 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with the XIII legion, (Gemina), thus signifying defiance to the Senate and intentions of conquering Rome, or at least ousting the current Generals holding power. In the civil war which followed, Caesar defeated Pompey and his supporters. In Egypt the new Roman dictator sided with Queen Cleopatra against the Pharaoh, installing her as the next ruler there. Caesar continued fighting wars and battles against perceived rivals, and Rome continued to elect him to terms as dictator and consul. Military historians today count him among the top ranks of military commanders in history. Ironically, he pardoned most of his conquered enemies, expanding Rome’s authority over millions.

During the late Roman republic, the River Rubicon marked the northern border of Italy, and Caesar’s crossing under arms would have been seen as insurrection and a declaration of war

The assassination of Julius Caesar by members of the Roman Senate

Caesar instituted many reforms in Rome and expanded public entertainments to the delight of the hoi polloi. He instituted many magnificent building projects, issued popular land reform and essentially marginalized the Roman Senate, making them subservient to his wishes. A plot was hatched by a cabal of Senators to assassinate Caesar. They distracted his supporters, primarily Marcus Antony, and pounced on Caesar March 15, 44 BC—The Ides of March. He died of twenty-three stab wounds. The death of Caesar also resulted in all sorts of unintended providential consequences—the practical end of the Republic, the elevation of his nephew Octavian, “Caesar Augustus,” the dictatorship of a new and greater Caesar, the creation and expansion of the Roman Empire, and, now “in the fullness of time,” during the Pax Romana, Christ was born in the Province of Judea.

Mark Antony’s oration at the funeral of Julius Caesar

Image Credits: 1 Julius Caesar (Wikipedia.org) 2 Julius Caesar Bust (Wikipedia.org) 3 Charlton Heston as Mark Antony (Wikipedia.org) 4 Cornelia (Wikipedia.org) 5 Gaius Marius (Wikipedia.org) 6 Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Wikipedia.org) 7 Roman Senate (Wikipedia.org) 8 Vercingetorix Before Caesar (Wikipedia.org) 9 Plutarch (Wikipedia.org) 10 Crossing the Rubicon (Wikipedia.org) 11 Death of Julius Caesar (Wikipedia.org) 12 Funeral Oration of Mark Antony (Wikipedia.org)

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” —Psalm 90:12

The Birth of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
March 8, 1841

he namesake of his famous father, Holmes, Jr. would exceed him in public recognition on a national scale and come to symbolize the sea-change in legal theory from the time of his birth on March 8, 1841 to that of his death ninety-four years later. He served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) for almost thirty years (1902-1932), and helped transform legal theory, some of which still holds sway today in law schools around the United States.

Holmes, Jr. (right) with his brother Edward (left) and sister Amelia (center), c. 1854

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) played a dominant role in the intellectual life of New England from his days as a Harvard student to the end of his life. Standing only five feet three inches tall, but a polymath and genius, Holmes, Sr. gained his initial notoriety as a poet, but avidly pursued the medical profession, becoming an outstanding, innovative and reforming medical doctor. His connections with the intellectual elites of his day, his wit and humor, and influence as a teacher, writer, inventor and reformer certainly had a powerful effect on his son. Holmes, Jr. also matriculated at Harvard, following in his father’s footsteps as a man of intellectual achievement and letters. He formed lifelong friendships with fellow Harvard students with similar ambitions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894)

Major Holmes in Union uniform

As the scion of an abolitionist family, Wendell, using his father’s connections, received a Lieutenancy in the 20th Massachusetts Infantry in the Civil War. In the course of the war, Holmes was wounded at Ball’s Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville and suffered from an almost fatal bout of dysentery. He rose to the Lieutenant Colonelcy of his regiment and joined the Corps staff rather than command the regiment. Many of his closest friends were killed, and when the regiment’s three-year enlistment expired, he returned home weakened and sick in body and soul. In an oft-quoted speech twenty years after the war, ex-Colonel Holmes said “through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. We have seen with our own eyes the snowy heights of honor.”

Holmesdale, the family home of the Holmes family, Berkshire, Massachussetts

Again, strongly influenced by his father, he entered Harvard Law School in 1864. Admitted to the bar in 1866, Holmes formed close ties with British jurists, and visited England often. His anglophilia and keen legal interests resulted in the only book he published entitled The Common Law in 1881. Holmes married a childhood friend, Fanny Bowditch Dixwell in 1872, who proved to be a homebody, though they never had any children; their marriage lasted fifty-seven years, until her death. Holmes practiced admiralty and commercial law for his first fifteen years in Boston before taking a position teaching law at Harvard, a short–lived enterprise from which he resigned to accept service as a judge. In 1899 he became the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

The national influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. came while on the bench in the Supreme Court. He was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, with the hope of furthering the progressive Republican agenda. Holmes, however, would prove to be his own man, “solitary, introspective, and solemn.” He was “strikingly detached from politics” and typically did not rule on the basis of short-term political gain by a party. He would, in fact, become known as “the Great Dissenter.” Holmes made waves early by defending the 1st Amendment rights of free speech, in response to sedition acts established during the First World War to incarcerate critics of the war, or those who expressed sympathy with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Holmes’s opinion declared the right of criticizing the government unless such speech posed a “clear and present danger.

Holmes, Jr. in 1902, the year of his appointment to the US Supreme Court by President Theodore Roosevelt

Justice Holmes’s greatest influence, perhaps, concerned the actual nature of the Constitution itself as it related to the Common Law:

“He pushed American jurisprudence away from the Blackstonian conception of the common law that had appealed to the founding generation and that had been dealt a heavy blow by the Civil War and Reconstruction.”¹

Many believe the most influential ideas informing Holmes’s legal philosophy were pragmatism and Darwinism as applied to the Common Law. For Blackstone, the common law was a “static canon dating from time immemorial”—unchanged and unadulterated. For Holmes, the judge does not consult “the wisdom of the ages,” but takes into account the latest scientific discoveries, using the biological and anthropological uses that Darwinism provided.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was an English jurist, judge and politician of the eighteenth century, most noted for writing the authoritative work on the study of law, Commentaries on the Laws of England

“Much of The Common Law substantiates Haack’s point that Holmes entertained and employed pragmatic theories that represented the evolutionary theories animating the common law.”²

Thus, for Holmes, the Constitution is a “living document,” and the rulings by the highest court in the land ought to reflect the times in which they are made. The inevitability of change in the culture would influence how the common law and founding documents ought to change with the times, a reinvention of common law in practice. Objective standards should be replaced with “community standards.”

Justice Holmes, circa 1924

Holmes became known for his support of the eugenics movement, another controversial aspect of his jurisprudential viewpoints. Holmes corresponded with many men and women over his long career, most letters of which have not yet been published. The first biography of the man based on his papers, held in thrall by Harvard University, was not published until 1989. He served longer than any other justice, to the age of ninety years and ten months, dying at the age of ninety-four during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. Justice Holmes requested burial at Arlington Cemetery, and among his effects was his blood-stained uniform, from the wounds he sustained in the Civil War. He was a man who could easily have died in the war, but providentially survived to become one of the most powerful and influential justices that molded the direction of the Supreme Court, and thus the history of the United States.

The final resting place of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his wife Fanny in Arlington National Cemetery

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and the Darwinian Common Law Paradigm by Allen Mendenhall
2. Ibid.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. by G. Edward White, Oxford, 2006 (in the Lives and Legacies series) is a recommended short biography and summary of the life of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Image Credits: 1 The Holmes siblings (Wikipedia.org) 2 Justice Holmes (Wikipedia.org) 3 Holmes, Sr. (Wikipedia.org) 4 Major Holmes (Wikipedia.org) 5 Holmesdale (Wikipedia.org) 6 Holmes, Jr. (Wikipedia.org) 7 William Blackstone (Wikipedia.org) 8 Justice Holmes in library (Wikipedia.org) 9 Holmes’ grave (Wikipedia.org)

Mexican Reinforcements Arrive at the Alamo, February 27, 1836

he Siege of the Alamo in San Antonio de Bexar lasted from February 23 to March 6, 1836. Many people know how it ended in the assault and destruction of the garrison in the Spanish mission-turned-fortress, and the longer outcome of Texas independence, eventual statehood, and preeminent place in American history. Fewer know about the reinforcements that considered going to the Alamo’s aid, and those handful who actually joined the garrison, and with them, Texas immortality.

“Ruins of the Church of the Alamo, San Antonio de Bexar”, an 1847 watercolor by Edward Everett who painted the piece while stationed in San Antonio during the Mexican-American War

After several years of negotiation with the Mexican authorities, Stephen F. Austin, a native of Wythe County, Virginia, led three hundred American families to settle in the Mexican province of Texas in 1825. The government in Mexico City at that time was a Federal Republic, based on the Mexican Constitution of 1824. In 1835 a military dictator, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna suspended the Constitution and created a centralized state, of which the province of Texas was a part. The Texians (as they called themselves), rebelled, as did several other Northern provinces, demanding independence. In Texas, they seized the old mission station known as the Alamo in San Antonio, over the first two weeks of December. Texians organized militias for defense across the region, made up of native Mexicans and American immigrants. Representatives of the settlements met in San Felipe in November, and appointed Sam Houston, a veteran soldier and respected leader, in charge of the yet unraised regular army. They called for volunteers but gave Houston no money or supplies.

Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) known as the “Father of Texas”

In addition to Texas, numerous other independence movements sprang up in the period between 1835-1936

The Alamo Mission station, now a hastily converted fort, covered three acres, with a surrounding wall of nine to twelve feet high, surrounding about thirteen hundred linear feet. By February, the fort was under the joint command of South Carolinian William Barrett Travis, a regular army officer, and militia leader, Kentuckian James Bowie, a rough and tumble frontiersman with a checkered past. On February 16, unknown to the Alamo garrison, Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande River at the head of about 1,500 troops, determined to crush the rebellion. Only 156 men manned the fort, with fourteen in the hospital.

This sketch of William Barret Travis (1809-1836) is the only known likeness of him created during his lifetime

While the people of Bexar and the men of the Alamo celebrated George Washington’s birthday on February 21, Santa Anna sent Colonel Sesma with a cavalry strike force to catch the garrison out of their fort and dancing in the streets. As Providence would have it, a downpour of rain flooded the banks of the Medina River, only twenty-five miles away, preventing the Mexican horsemen from crossing the river. The confrontation would have to await a more dramatic and consequential moment in time. Two days later, the Texians spotted the Mexican army across the prairie, herded cattle into the fort, lay in stocks of corn and awaited the arrival of Santa Anna.

Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876)

Travis dispatched a scout to request Colonel Fannin with several hundred men one hundred miles away and two riders to the town of Gozales where more militia and supplies could be brought to reinforce the beleaguered post at San Antonio. After flying the flag of “no quarter” by the Mexicans, and an exchange of cannon fire, the two sides settled in for what would prove not to be a protracted siege. Four scouts who were out when the enemy arrived were unable to get into the fort and rode away.

Col. James Fannin (1805-1836)

Another courier slipped out of the fort and rode to Gonzales with the following message, which was then raced up to San Felipe to the governor:

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the World—

Fellow citizens & compatriots—I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country—

Victory or Death
William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. comdt

Letter written by Travis seeking reinforcements and supplies

Volunteers across Texas assembled at various points, although the government was in no position to send relief. An army of militia groups began assembling at Gonzales. On February 26, Col. Fannin started out for the Alamo with 350 men and four cannon from Goliad, ninety miles away. After two days of travel, the relief column had travelled less than a mile from their fort. Their oxen had wandered off, wagons broke down, a freezing rain made the men miserable, they didn’t have enough food, reports said another Mexican army was headed their way– the expedition was called off. Twenty-five men from Gonzales set off for the Alamo, soon joined by eight more. They carried the “Come and Take It” flag from an earlier confrontation in Gonzales between Mexican dragoons and the first Texians to face off against them. They snuck through Mexican lines and joined the garrison. The next day Santa Anna received 1,000 reinforcements.

Detail of a mural in the Gonzales Memorial Museum

“The Fall of the Alamo” also known as “Crockett’s Last Stand” is house in the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin

On March 6, the Mexican army struck before dawn, after bombardment with artillery the day before. Overwhelming the guards and swarming over the walls, after two brief repulses. The battle likely lasted less than an hour as all the defenders were tracked down and killed. Any who attempted to escape to the prairie were trapped and killed by the excellent Mexican cavalry who had been stationed outside for just such a purpose. All the defenders perished and are remembered today in legend, monuments, and scores of books on the Alamo and Texas independence.

This 1886 painting depicts the end of the Texas Revolution where Mexican General Santa Anna surrenders to a wounded Sam Houston following the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto

Image Credits: 1 Alamo Watercolor (Wikipedia.org) 2 Stephen F. Austin (Wikipedia.org) 3 Independence Movements Map (Wikipedia.org) 4 William Barret Travis (Wikipedia.org) 5 Santa Anna (Wikipedia.org) 6 Col. James Fannin (Wikipedia.org) 7 Travis Letter (Wikipedia.org) 8 Museum Mural (TripAdvisor.com) 9 Fall of the Alamo (Wikipedia.org) 10 Surrender of Santa Anna (Wikipedia.org)