BOB DAVIS ART

Texas

A. Background

Texas is the biggest of the Big States in the United States of America, the biggest of the Big Countries on Earth, the Center of the Universe. Thus Texas is the successful home to 2 recent Larger-Than-Life American Presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson and George W. Bush. However, the similarities end there: Johnson was a Democrat, while Bush is a Republican; Johnson was President during the contentious 1960s and is no longer with us (deceased August 18, 1974) and Bush is still with us. Vice-President of the United States of America Dick Cheney was also born in Texas, while George W. Bush was born in Connecticut and went to school in Massachusetts (the two smallest of those small New England states in the far Northern corner of the country.)

In addition to being the "Birthplace of Presidents," Texas was also the site of the famous seige of the Alamo, and the famous Bowie vs. Houston Duel known as "The Shot Heard Round the World," where Sam Houston (Vice-President) shot David Bowie (Secretary of the Treasury) dead. Thus Texas gained independence from Mexico, before being attacked and subsumed within the United States, then a small country of small Northern States just looking for a Big Western State to complete themselves.

Texas is split in half by the most god-awful Interstate Highway in the world, I-8, splitting the North from the South along the famous Mason-Dixie Line of 1844.

Dome of Texas State Capitol

History of Texas

Texas was found as an independent state in 1723. This founding is described in the 44,042 page tome, 'The Real Big History of Texas," by Josiah Jeffers. On page 23,223, paragraph 4, the author writes,

Texas was founded in 1816 by a band of brothers immediately following their heroic efforts in defending the United States against Great Britain in the war of 1812. These famous souls, including Francis Scott Key, composer of the "Star Spangled Banner" and Davy Crockett left our nation's capitol, Washington, (named after the first President of the United States of America) and headed Westward as part of the 19th Century Westward expansionism promoted by President Andrew "Scoop" Jackson. They ended up in what we now call Austin, but back then the irritable natives called it "Palermo," and founded the Great Independent and Under Nobody's Thumb State of Texas.

Unfortunately, a series of difficult battles followed, ending with the incorporation of the state into the United States as the 49th state, followed only by Alaska as the 50th (and largest, too, at that.)

Today Texas stands as a monument.

Texas State Armadillo

Texas Size

Texas is 4,232 hectares. Texas is the largest of the Big States, not including Alaska, which doesn't count, anyway. It comprises nearly 1/4 the entire area of the entire land mass of the Earth, not including the Seven Seas, the Mighty Oceans and the Great Lakes district of the northern midwest.

Texas State Bluebonnet

Texas Timeline

1723: Texas is found by 3 gold prospectors on their way to California.

1812: The War of 1812, in which the Founders of the State of Texas were War Heroes, defeating the British before heading out West.

1816: The founders of Texas finally found Texas after four years of wandering.

1822: Revolution! Texas is no longer independent, but is now part of Mexico.

1824: France invades and conquers the undisturbed territory East of the Rio Grande.

1826: Texas declares independence from France.

1828: Texas cecedes from independence to become part of Mexico again.

1854: Texas cedes territory to New Mexico in a fight for recognition by the Awanee Indians.

1859: Texas cecedes from the Union, which it was not a part of at that time.

1860: Texas joins the Confederacy as the 14th State.

1861: War!

1865: Texas loses and is finally incorporated into the United States as the 49th State.

1866: Texas declares itself "Big" presaging the fights with Alaska in the next century over "bigness."

1963: Kennedy is killed in Dealy Plaza; Lone Gunman shot dead; Vice-President Johnson of Texas becomes President while in flight; Grassy Knoll becomes the latest dance craze sweeping the nation.

1965: Dallas Memorial to Slain President Kennedy, designed by famed Nazi and gay architect Phillip Johnson, erected in the Texas Book Depository's 3rd Floor window.

2000: Governor George W. Bush of Texas is elected President of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Texas State Outline

Texas Exports

Texas is a leading exporter of Oil and daisies.

Texas Oil

Texas' Davey Crockett

This knowledge entry was written by BD, GWB, DC and SH

If you are using this for a school paper, please remember to credit the "Bob Davis Knowledge Base"

last updated February 19, 2007

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