If you're a history buff, you'll love Texas. See where Stephen Austin established the state's first American colony; Austin, Texas was named after him. Visit the Alamo and see where 189 courageous Americans held back about 4,000 Mexican soldiers for 13 days before losing their lives. Jim Bowie fought and died at San Antonio; the Bowie knife was named after him. The battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" roused Sam Houston's army to fight victoriously and to free the state from Mexican rule.

Texas is named after the Indian word "Tejas," which means "friends" or "allies." Do you know why Texas is nicknamed the "Lone Star State?" It's because the state was once an independent country with its own single star flag. The abbreviation for Texas is TX.

Texas is a West South Central state bordered by Oklahoma to the north, Louisiana to the East, and Mexico to the south. It is the second most populous state in the United States; only California has more residents. The state is the largest in the contiguous (that is, connected, not including Hawaii and Alaska) United States and the second largest overall; only Alaska is bigger. Texas is as large as Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and all of New England combined; Connecticut and Rhode Island could almost fit inside Brewster, the state's largest county. You can see forest, mountains, deserts, dry plains, and coastal lowlands if you travel through Texas.

Texas is a very productive state. If you want to see the most farmland of any state in the country, go to Texas. Over 1,000 different soils produce a variety of crops there. You can still find people wearing cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats. While the state leads the country in production of beef, cattle, sheep, and wool, many people who live there don't fit the cowboy image. Texas is also the country's leading producer of oil, natural gas, and sulfur. Crude oil, or "black gold," was discovered in the state during the 19th century and the enormous east Texas oil field was discovered in 1930.

Many of the state's cities also have an interesting history. Taste the food, experience the festivals, or see the architecture at San Antonio; they all reflect Texas' early Spanish and Mexican colonization. The state still has a large Hispanic population. At night, watch mercury vapor lamps cast a bluish light over Austin, the state's capital. Visit Fort Worth, a Texas city that was initially an Army post established to protect settlers from the Indians.

You can try to figure out what really happened when President Kennedy was assassinated at the Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Lyndon Johnson, who was born in Texas, became the next president. If you like spaceships, you can see NASA's headquarters for manned spacecraft projects at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, the state's largest city. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was also born in Texas.

Besides the assassination of President Kennedy, Texas is known for another act of violence. Do you remember the Waco tragedy in 1993? Using tanks and battering rams, the FBI stormed the Branch Dividian cult's compound and 80 members of the cult died in the ensuing fire.