U.S. Navy caught running guns to Santa Anna

While on patrol off the Mexican coast on Mar. 20, 1836, the Invincible vanquished an enemy man-of-war and seized an American blockade runner on the high seas. It was all in a day’s work for the Texas Navy.

Disgraced politician tries to settle the score

Mar. 14, 1882, was the date and the Dallas County Courthouse was the place a former mayor of three Texas towns chose to have it out with the man he blamed for his latest fall from political grace.

It was no coincidence that James Thurmond went out west in the late 1850s. Like other youths of draft age, the Kentucky native wanted to put as many miles as possible between him and the soon-to-come Civil War.

Marine from South Texas raised Iwo Jima flag

A young marine from South Texas was one of six American fighting men caught on camera on Feb. 23, 1945, raising the Stars and Stripes on a Pacific battlefield called Iwo Jima.

Harlon Henry Block was born in 1924 at Yorktown and grew up on 40 acres in the Rio Grande Valley. The third of six children, he had one sister and four brothers.