You'll Never Know What Heaven Means

Mention New Orleans (pronounced "N'awlins") and most people will immediately envision the week-long party that is Mardis Gras, enjoying Dixieland Jazz while sipping mint juleps in the historic French Quarter, or perhaps even recall "The Big Easy," the 1987 police thriller starring Dennis Quaid.

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From the movie:

As the first Frenchman to explore the lower Mississippi, Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed the entire river basin for France. Sitting in the mouth of the Mississippi River, the city of New Orleans was settled by the French in a quest to find a location where sea-faring vessels could unload and store cargo amidst the frequent flooding and featureless muck that is the Mississippi River Delta.

From December 1814 through January 1815 the Battle of New Orleans was waged on the Chalmette battleground, just below the city. 3,500 to 5,000 U.S. troops led by Major General Andrew Jackson, who would later become the 7th President, engaged between 11,000 and 14,450 troops under the command of Major General Sir Edward Pakenham in the Louisiana campaign.

In the final confrontation, two British generals, including Major General Pakenham, were killed among over 2,000 British casualties. U.S. losses were counted at 71 men.

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Just A Half-A-Mile From The Mississippi Bridge

Memphis, Tennessee, Home of the Blues, Beale Street, Elvis Presley, Sun Records, and The Peabody Hotel, to name a few.

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After the Battle of Memphis, early in the Civil War, Federal troops occupied Memphis after a Union fleet defeated Confederate naval forces.

About a year after the close of the Civil War, an altercation between white policemen and a group of discharged black soldiers erupted into the Memphis Riot of 1866. Without going into details, suffice it to say that the entire sequence of events is disgraceful and left 48 dead (only 2 whites) and hundreds of black homes, schools and churches destroyed.

Memphis suffered little damage during the war, but a 1878 epidemic of yellow-fever further hindered recovery efforts and probably added more tension to already shaky race relations.

The yellow-fever killed more than 5000. A disproportionate number of those killed were whites and has been attributed to genetic predisposition. The surviving white population virtually abandonded Memphis.

In 1968, as sanitation workers walked out on strike and a riotous climate again loomed, Martin Luther King, Jr. came to lend his support. He was assassinated in Memphis on April 4.

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Beneath The Stars All Alone

In the early 1800s, a Spanish calvalry unit was stationed the Misión San Antonio de Valero. The mission, originally constructed in 1724, was refered to by the soldiers as the Spanish word for "cottonwood" in honor of their hometown Alamo de Parras, Coahuila.

During the Texas Revolution, the Alamo was taken from Mexican General Marín Perfecto de Cós and occupied by Texian and Tejano volunteers.

In February 1836, the army of General Antonio López de Santa Anna laid seige on the Alamo. Caught by surprise and greatly outnumbered, the Alamo was successfully defended for almost 13 days under the command of William B. Travis.

Travis had sent out couriers to seek help and on the eighth day 32 volunteers from Gonzales arrived. Lore holds that this brought the count of defenders to 180 vs. over 2000 Mexican troops.

The legend continues that Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword, challenging any man willing to stay and fight to cross over, with 179 doing so, including Jim Bowie, renowned knife fighter, and David Crockett, famed frontiersman and former congressman from Tennessee.

Details concerning the battle are a subject of much debate. Mexican casualty estimates range from 70 to 1600. Modern Alamo historians set the Mexican casualties at 600 killed and wounded. All of the defenders were killed, not including a few family members and servants, save one. A former Mexican soldier, was apparently spared execution by claiming he was an unwilling prisoner.

The first song written by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1927, Spanish Two Step, was rearranged and retitled San Antonio Rose in the 1930s.

Contrary to other information you may have received, there is no basement at the Alamo.

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I Still Hear Your Seawaves Crashing

The City of Galveston was chartered in 1839, but the "Queen City of the Gulf" has been occupied since the early 1500s.

Occupying virtually all of a 32 mile long island 2 miles off the Texas coast, Galveston has been the home to Akokisa Indians and the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte, known for his piracy in the Gulf of Mexico, and lauded for his heroism in the Battle of New Orleans. During it's history, Galveston has also been known as "Little Ellis Island" and "The Wall Street of the Southwest."

Galveston was the location of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. The Great Storm of 1900 killed, according to estimates, at least 6,000 and left 8,000 homeless.

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I Hate To Do This To You, But I Found Somebody New

On Route 66 and twenty-four hours from not-very-much-at-all lies the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

For Gene Pitney, Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa was a springboard from which his fame would grow internationally.

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