On February 24, 1836, in San Antonio, Texas, Colonel William
Travis issued a call for help on behalf of the Texan troops
defending the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress
under siege by the Mexican army.

Though Santa Ana’s 5,000 troops heavily outnumbered the
several hundred Texans, Travis and his men determined
not to give up. On February 24, they answered Santa Ana’s
call for surrender with a bold shot from the Alamo’s cannon.

Furious, the Mexican general ordered his forces to launch a
siege. Travis immediately recognized his disadvantage and
sent out several messages via couriers asking for some
reinforcements. Addressing one of the pleas to “The People
of Texas and All Americans in the World,” Travis signed off
with the now-famous phrase “Victory or Death.” 

TIM MAGUIRE

CAMILLE BOHANNON

On this day in 1943 during World War II, the Soviets announced that
they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941. As many as 200,000 Soviet soldiers were killed between September 1941 and May 1943 in the fighting.

Antiaircraft guns guarding the sky of Leningrad, in front of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

On January 18, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin puts flowers
on a monument at Nevsky Pyatachok near Kirovsk, marking the 75th
anniversary of the battle that broke the Seige of Leningrad, in St.
Petersburg, Russia.
 

On this day in 1912, after a two-month ordeal, the expedition of
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott (above) arrives at the South
Pole only to find that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer,
had preceded them by just over a month. Disappointed, the
exhausted explorers prepared for a long and difficult journey
back to their base camp.

This notebook spent 100 years buried in Antarctic ice, left there by explorer Robert Falcon Scott.

TIM MAGUIRE

Victims bodies are carried from the wreckage of the 1900 hurricane in Galveston.

On this day in 1966, NBC-TV aired the first episode of "Star Trek"
entitled "The Man Trap". The series was canceled on September 2,
1969.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

During World War II in this day in 1943, the Soviets announced that
they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.

Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition (1901–1904) and the ill-
fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913). On the second venture,
Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on this day
in 1912, four weeks after Amundsen‘s Norwegian expedition. Scott
and his companions perished on the return trip to camp.

Captain Robert Scott (June 6, 1868 – March 29, 1912)

On this day in 1967, Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery,
assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison where
he was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.
 

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936) 

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom. He is
regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story. His children’s
books are classics of children’s literature, and one critic described his
work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift”.