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1821 - The government of New Spain granted Moses Austin a permit to settle 300 families in Texas. This momentous agreement began the process of Anglo-American colonization in the future state. The elder Austin died, however, before he could fulfill his part of the contract, and his son Stephen F. Austin was recognized as his successor. Although Mexican independence from Spain cast temporary doubt on the future of the contract, a special decree issued in April 1823 allowed S. F. Austin to begin the colonization that led eventually to the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas.

1836 - James W. Robinson, lieutenant governor of the provisional government of Texas, appointed José Francisco Ruiz one of five commissioners to treat with the Comanche Indians. When the struggle for Texas independence gained momentum in 1835, Ruiz allied himself with its cause. He traveled to Washington-on-the-Brazos in late February 1836 as a delegate to the Convention of 1836. There he and his nephew José Antonio Navarro signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, the only native Texans among the fifty-nine men who affixed their names to this document.

1836 - Commander of the Texas forces, General Sam Houston, ordered Colonel Jim Bowie, commander of a group of Texas volunteers, to go to San Antonio and destroy any fortifications there, denying their use by the approaching Mexican Army. Shortly after Bowie arrived, Colonel William Travis of the Texas army arrived with orders instead to defend San Antonio at all costs. Making a stand to defend the town suited Col Travis better than retreating, so Travis and Bowie remained to defend the city with the small force they had against an overwhelming force headed in their direction.

1836 - Sterling Clack Robertson became captain of a company of Texas Rangers. Then he was elected as a delegate from the Municipality of Milam to the convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos (March 1-17, 1836), where he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. He was stationed at Harrisburg to guard army equipment during the battle of San Jacinto. Robertson served as senator from the District of Milam in the First and Second congresses of the Republic of Texas (October 3, 1836-May 24, 1838), after which he retired to his home in Robertson County, where he became the earliest known breeder of Arabian horses in Texas.

1840 - Leaders of the Mexican Federalist party met in Laredo to declare the independence of the ill-fated Republic of the Rio Grande. Antonio Canales Rosillo, commander-in-chief of the new republic's army, took the field against Centralist general Mariano Arista at Morales, Coahuila, in March 1840 and was disastrously defeated. Canales capitulated at Camargo in November 1840. He was taken into the Centralist army as an officer, and Federalism was dead for the time being.

1874 - Democrat Richard Coke was inaugurated as governor. The election is recognized as the end of reconstruction in Texas. Richard Coke began a democratic party dynasty in Texas that continued unbroken for over 100 years.

1900 - Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.

1928 - The Times Reporter out of Zanesville, Ohio reported the story of the Eastland County horned toad that emerged from the sealed cornerstone of the 1897 courthouse that was being demolished. Named "Old Rip" after Rip Van Winkle, the horned toad toured the country, even meeting the President of the United States. When Old Rip died later, an autopsy was performed and he was laid in an open casket and placed on public view.

1929 - Popeye, the Sailor Man, renowned comic-strip character, first appeared in print. The Victoria Advocate is credited as the first newspaper in the nation to run Elzie Crisler Segar's comic strip, originally called "Thimble Theatre," which starred the spinach-eating hero.

1995 - George W Bush, son of the 41st President of the United States, and managing owner of the Texas Rangers, was sworn in as the Governor of Texas.

1996 - Barbara Jordan, politician and educator, died in Austin. She was born in Houston in 1936 and grew up in that city's Fourth Ward. Jordan received a law degree from Boston University in 1959 and returned to Houston in 1960. She was the first black woman from a Southern state to serve in Congress, and, with Andrew Young, was one of the first two African Americans elected to Congress from the South in the twentieth century.

1994 - At 0430 I awoke to the pleasant thought that I would not have to drive to LA AFB that morning because it was a Federal Holiday (MLK day). Upon further reflection, I began to wonder why the cat was not in his usual position, snoring away on my feet. At 0431 I got the answer -- the 6.7 Northridge Earthquake decided to quake or detonate or erupt or whatever-you-call-it with its epicenter in Reseda (next to Northridge in the San Fernando Valley) approximately 9 miles from my rented house in the Santa Monica mountains. I had been in quakes before but this was by far the loudest, most violent event I had experienced since I jumped out of a C-130 directly behind the inboard engine going full bore -- and I knew that was coming. The bed was jerking all over the place, and from the noise I honestly thought every window in the house was being broken and all the nailed boards were being pulled loose. I rolled up in my bed covers to avoid flying glass shards from the large panes next to the bed. When it subsided, I carefully found my boots (always kept near the bed), emptied them in the dark, and got my flashlight and started checking for damages and looking for the cat. To my surprise, the only damage was a crack in the drywall (apparently the old house was "loose" enough it swayed instead of breaking), and the cat had burrowed into a closet at the far end of the house. His eyes were about the size of quarters. Mine too probably. We both sat on the bed until daylight, jumping at all the after-shocks.

The link to Texas is I now live here and thank God for that. California had pretty weather, but was pretty much a full time disaster between the earthquakes, the brushfires, the mudslides, and the government.