1836 - Col. James C. Neill relinquished command of the Alamo in order to leave the fort to care for his sick family. Neill left the garrison of about 150 men in the charge of 26-year-old William B. Travis. He told troops he would return in twenty days.
However, the volunteer troops at the Alamo preferred James Bowie as a commander and insisted on having an election for the position. The election took place on Feb. 12 and Bowie won. To celebrate his victory, he got drunk. While intoxicated, Bowie released some prisoners and paraded volunteer troops through the town of Bexar. Travis led the regular troops from the Alamo to the Medina River to avoid becoming involved in the incident. Travis and Bowie came to an agreement the next day. They decided that Travis would have command of the regular troops, Bowie would have command of the olunteers and they would share command over the garrison as a whole.
1839 - The first pubic school in Houston was opened.
1842 - The first and only mutiny in the Texas Navy began. The schooner San Antonio was anchored in the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Although the high- ranking officers were ashore, the sailors and marines were confined aboard because of fear of desertion. But they evidently got drunk on smuggled liquor and, under marine sergeant Seymour Oswalt, began a mutiny in which Lt. Charles Fuller was killed. Eventually, Commodore Edwin Moore brought some of the mutineers to trial. Three were sentenced to flogging, and four were hanged from the yardarm of the Austin on April 6, 1843. Oswalt himself escaped from jail in New Orleans and was never brought to justice.
1850 - The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway was chartered, marking the beginning of the railroad age in Texas. The BBB&C was the first railroad to begin operating in the state, the first component of the present Southern Pacific to open for service, and the second railroad west of the Mississippi River. Gen. Sidney Sherman was a member of the group that received the charter. Construction began from Buffalo Bayou to Harrisburg in 1851; the first locomotive, which was named for Sherman, arrived in 1852; and the first twenty miles of track, from Harrisburg to Stafford's Point, opened in 1853.
1854 - The Texas Legislature appropriated $17,500 for the construction of the Governor’s Mansion in Austin. Gov. Elisha M. Pease was the first to occupy the residence.
1869 - The 300 foot sternwheeler "Mittie Stephens" was returning from a trip from Shreveport to Jefferson on Caddo Lake on this date in 1869 when the sternman's tourch used to help spot the shore, set the boat on fire. Passengers race to the rear of the boat to escape the flames, but the huge sternwheel was not stopped. Dozens of passengers were trampled in an effort to escape. Others who dived into the water were crushed or drowned by the huge paddle wheel. None of the children on board were ever rescued. In all 63 souls were lost in the tragedy.
1915 - The state legislature passed an appropriations bill to pay for expenses incurred by former governor Oscar Branch Colquitt for "chicken salad and punch," among other items, during his term in office. An ensuing legal battle, known as the "Chicken Salad Case," lasted until June 1916, when Justice William Seat Fly ruled that the legislature could appropriate for fuel, water, lights, and ice necessary for the Governor's Mansion, but not for groceries and other personal needs of the governor. Colquitt's successor as governor, Jim Ferguson, had continued to purchase groceries with state money under this appropriation. Ferguson testified under oath that he would repay the state if the Supreme Court decided against him, but failed to do so. In September 1917 the High Court of Impeachment held that Ferguson was guilty of a misapplication of public funds.
1933 - During the high number of bank robberies during the 1930s, the Texas Bankers Association on this date in 1933, announced that bankers should carry guns to protect deposits and reduce the number of holdups.
1946 - Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio was activated by the army.
2006 - In Texas, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a quail hunt. [
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That's funny! 
