Doomed to Fail - Ep 82 - And Don't You Forget It!! - The Alamo

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Oh, Texas! Always in a tizzy aren't y'all? Today we start off with the question what do John Wayne, Lyndon Johnson, and Phil Collins all have in common? You guessed it! they are obsessed with The Alamo. We'll discuss the truths (Yes, they all fought to the death) and the myths (no, they weren't 'heroes' - specifically because they were all fighting for their rights to enslave people). We'll talk about what happened in the brutal hour-long battle in 1836 and then the battle to memorialize the land and the story that has raged since then.As of this story "Phil Collin's museum of questionable Alamo stuff" is still pending in San Antonio. Want to hear our John Wayne impression? It's just "Howdy, Señorita" - pls read that in a John Wayne voice. https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/texas-history-timelineLine in the SandWhy Is Teaching the History of the Alamo Controversial? | TIMEhttps://www.amazon.com/Forget-Alamo-Rise-Fall-American/dp/198488011X/ Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your family. The recording is in progress. Did you say I just almost stab myself in the face with the scissors? I don't know. You know, I don't know why you held the scissors directly up to your face.

But besides trying to stab yourself. off on the face. I'm going to put them down. I don't think I should hold them anymore. Might be a good idea. We just learned that Taylor will be off to lovely, lovely Japan in about two months' time for two weeks, which is really, really exciting. And she's going to be flexing her brand new Doc Martins, which, as we just described, was an absolute status symbol when I was in high school. I hope it's not offensive to anyone. I know I have to cover my tattoos in some places. My cousin Lindsay, who we know and love, knows more about Japan than anyone I know. She has her PhD in Japanese literature.

She teaches at Japan House at University of Illinois. She's the smartest person I know. And so her and Juan spent two hours on Zoom together on Sunday, just like talking about all the things that we should do. And she gave us love advice, and it was very exciting. Why would Doc Martin be offensive? I don't know. I feel like tattoos are offensive. Are they going to think I'm in the Yakuza?

Oh, my God. I got that out. I don't want to do anything wrong. You'll be fine. I'm sensitive. Yeah, you're probably not the first American they interacted with. I know. I'm just the coolest.

The coolest, exactly. You're going to have some of the best food and the best scenery. And I expect there to be a giant Instagram drop highlighting the entire trip. Oh, my God, totally. We'll have Instagram when we're there, too, because this is 2024. We can do whatever we want. You can have the Internet in Japan. It'd be dope. Wild, wild times.

Yeah. So today we are going, oh, yeah, we are doomed to fail. I literally just stop doing the intro at this point. We're due to fail. I'm far as joined here by Taylor. We discussed Stephen Glass earlier this week. We are on to a new topic that's going to be run by Taylor. And Taylor and I have a shared Google Drive, but we make it a point not to check what each other's up to in there. Taylor deliberately, yeah, deliberately asked me this week.

not to look. And I think it was most because of the fact that I was, we took a little break between recording this time as opposed to usual. And so she thought I would go and peek, which I saw your message and I did not. Good. I mean, I just wanted to get, I wanted to get a little bit ahead and like put up the photos and such. But I am ready. Are you ready? I'm ready. Is this going to be a guest situation or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Fars. I'm going to name three people and I want you to tell me what they have in common. I love this game. Let's do it. Ready?

John Wayne, Lyndon Johnson, and Phil Collins. Very tall. I think Phil Collins is like 5'3. Then I have no, men of the 1950s and 60s. No. Paul Collins is like not that old. He's pretty old, isn't it? He's got to be like in his 70s, right?

He's 5'6. I was not wrong. But John Wayne is like 105. He's dead. True. He is dead. All right. I wrote correct in a funny way if you're going to get it or not.

But they're all obsessed with, they're all obsessed with one thing that is famous in your home state of Texas. And it is the Alamo. Ah. Yeah. And I was looking, researching this already. And then now Texas is like, losing its mind. Have you seen what's going on in Texas because you're there? There's something going on with Border Patrol. Jesus Christ. So like the federal government said that they cannot

throw babies into the river full of razor wire and Texas says no, they want to do that. I feel like there's a lot more nuance to that. Hopefully it's not just that, but lots of it going on. I saw some like really fun memes about it. I don't know if this is true, but I've seen it a bunch where someone posted like if we secede from America do still get our social security checks like no sweetie you don't that's not how that works that's only the one thing that stops happening i mean i think the idea of having to get a texas passport have organized everyone in texas would be enough to stop that happening but texas does have the distinction of being the only state that was some country right let's talk about it is that that's what you're doing you're covering texas

Or the alma. Oh, sweet. Woo. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah, like, I've been to the Alamo a million times. It's a huge part of Texas culture and high school they teach you a ton about it. I mean, in every part of education in Texas they teach you about it. So, but I mean, I've been gone back and revisited like in a very long time. So I'm excited. Yeah. And I, what you might call it? I was going to say this later, but I can say this now that in like 2018, they tried to get, Texas to stop calling the people of the Alamo heroic because heroic implies that they were doing the right thing. And like someone known to the Texas Board of Education with that and the Texas Board of Education said no, we have to keep teaching them as heroic. Yeah, but I mean, I have a board of knowledge of what happened. I mean, they were standing up to San Jacinto in his military. Santana. Damn it. And you know why? Because he wanted them to come back to Mexico. He wanted Texas to come back to Mexico Texas was part of Mexico

Fuck Okay I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna take back everything I said I knew about it It was a long time ago people I'm nearly four years old I wasn't in high school in like 30 years Okay so yes it is the Alamo

Like I said I've been thinking about the American West And we've been talking about it And I remember that I read a book called Forget the Alamo that our friend Beth told me about And I thought oh I'll read that again While I was, like, at my break and, like, painting, I was like, oh, that was fun to read. I'll read it again. So I went to, I have this app called Everand.

It's like $10 a month, and you can get, like, most books on it, like, pretty immediately. You don't have to wait. So I was like, oh, I'll find it there. So I started reading this book called Forget the Alamo. And it was like a dude in the military in the Middle East. And he was, like, driving a, I don't know, whatever, like a Humvee. And then they got into an accident. and like a I

I nope not IUD yeah it's not IUD improvised IED IED yeah right IUD is birth control anyway and then he like went into a coma and then woke up and he was at the Alamo and I was like I am reading the wrong book because that is not the book that I meant to read so I stopped reading that book so I was like this is silly what am I reading

and I went back and read the actual book that I wanted to read called Forget the Alamo and I'll put it in in there and the notes and everything. But Fars, as a student of Texas, have you been to the Bullock Museum in Austin? So I have been there because the Bullock Museum in Austin actually contains a one of those IMAXs. One of the eight IMAXs that does the 80 millimeter or whatever it is,

you know what I'm talking about? It's like the best version of an IMAX and only very few theaters in the U.S. habit. but I went there for that I did not go there to actually see the museum well it sounds cool they have a lot of like Texas history stuff there so next time I'm in Austin we should go but it has on their website they have some really cool timelines of different pieces of Texas history so for example there's evidence like the first people were there in about 14,000 BC and then we're like the Clovis people in the Ice Age I think we've talked about them so there's evidence going very far back of humans living there but they do have a specific specific timeline just for the Texas part of history, not like the land, but like Texas has a thing. So it has a great timeline. It ends with George Bush being president, which is not complete. That's when history ended. Someone should update their website because the rest of it seems pretty legit. And then you're like, stuff happened after that. Like there's been

new governors. Like at least have been the new governors. But so basically, 1492, Columbus gets to the Americas. In 1519, Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda mapped out the Gulf of Mexico. So this is the Spanish, kind of going into that like Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, Florida, Louisiana, Texas place that we know now is a Gulf of Mexico. There's lots of Spanish exploration, obviously. In 1598, conquistador Juan deionate and hundreds of settlers finally reached. the Rio Grande and April. So it was Spanish territory for several hundred years and like part of Spain. Okay. Now it's the 1800s. And between 1820 and 1824, Mexico wins its independence from Spain. So now Mexico is its own country. And Texas is a Mexican province. Wait, that's how recently Spain owned... say 1820? Yeah.

I know. It's not about long ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a little bit pre-Civil War, but 1800s. Yeah. So Texas was part of Mexico. And there's a dude named Moses Austin.

And he's a land guy in the east. He owns like a lead mine. They call him the king of lead, which is not great because that makes you crazy. But it can kill you. I mean, it would have been cool if he was like a. an armed dealer, though. Yeah, totally. That's true.

That's pretty cool. But Moses Austin gets a grant from Mexico to bring 300 families over because Mexico is like, yeah, totally. We want people here. Hilarious border negotiations. Wait, I'm missing something. He wanted a grant to bring them from where? From the East Coast of America. Okay, got it.

Okay, yeah. Whoa. Zoom is really taking my hand gestures too serious. Moses, there's a lot of space in Texas, obviously. Texas is gigantic and it's very fertile and you can grow things there like cotton. And Mexico's like, you know what? We need more people here. We need families to come in and use the land and invest in our infrastructure. So we want you to come. Moses Austin dies before he gets there. But his son, Stephen F. Austin, brings people over. And he's probably the Austin that Austin named after. Probably. So Mexico wanted people to settle. They said come into our territory, with a $30 down payment, you don't have to pay taxes for the next 10 years. Like, we just want you to come.

We want people from the U.S. to come to Texas, which is part of Mexico, to live. So there is a, so the Americans coming over. Wait, so was Mexico, was Texas as part of Mexico unsettled? A lot of it was. I mean, there were, like, Native Americans there, but, like, it wasn't settled by Mexico particularly, like, that much. So they were, like, trying to get more people to come. Got it.

They were like, we see opportunity here. More people can come here. We can fit more people. You could fit more people in Texas now. You could fit the entire U.S. in Texas is a celebrity. Yeah. If you were, like, everyone in these space, yeah, come to Texas. There's plenty of space.

So, Mexico invited all these people from the U.S. to come. They came, started settling right away. wanted to be their own thing. They didn't really want to be a part of Mexico or part of the U.S. They called themselves Texians, which is hard to say and weird, but they called themselves Texians, but they were officially Mexicans when they lived there. They also brought from the U.S., guess what they brought? Probably something bad. Yeah, they brought their enslaved people. There you go. And Mexico is an abolitionist country. It always has been when it started. It became one. And they said, no, we do not want you to have enslaved people here in Mexico.

And the Texians were like, but then we wouldn't have any money, you know, just like Thomas Jefferson, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you don't understand if I didn't have these people, then like, I wouldn't make as much money as I'm making right now. Like, do you realize how much more money there is for me if I don't have to pay the overhead of people working for me? Yeah. So, so they were, that's what the fight of Alamo is about.

It's about the Texas is right to have enslaved people. So that's what it is about. And similar to the second time that Texas was in a war in the 1800s versus a civil war, it was all about keeping their enslaved people. I mean, that is, I will say, that is less romantic than we are just a steadfast people who want our autonomy. Yes. I mean, it's like, you know, remember when like the other day people are like, one of the presidential candidates was like, Oh, yeah, the Civil War was about states' rights. And you're like, oh, my God, it's not necessarily rights to say people.

There is a unique desire to deliberately misunderstand history for reasons that I guess kind of makes sense, depending on your demographic that you're catering to, but isn't intellectually honest. Yeah, it's not honest. Like, if you go to Germany, they're very honest. You know, they learn, they talk about what happened. There's still, you know, baddies over there, but they talk about it. They definitely don't talk. You can't even bring.

You can't bring. What are you talking about? You can't bring up. There's like a thousand Holocaust museums in Germany. No, I know. But like you can't be a Nazi, but you can talk about Nazis. Yeah. I just have, I, I've been in Germany and I'm like, these people are not nice people.

Like they're not warm nice people at all. I thought, I think they're super nice. Maybe it's just because maybe. I think you're proud and maybe that's bad. Maybe that's a point. Okay, fine, you win. Because the way you look It probably has a lot to do with it.

There's people everywhere who aren't great, but either way, these wars are about the right to keep people enslaved so that you can have more money. And so not money, like every war is out also. So Mexico starts to get nervous. They are now encouraging people

from like the country of Mexico as we know it now, like the southern part, to move into Texas so that the Texians aren't the only people there, which is just so funny that that border has always been like a problem. So now they're trying to get people to like move. And it's all Mexico still. But the people in the Texas part of Mexico are getting like, they're getting riled up.

In 1830, Mexico totally bans U.S. immigration. So they say we don't want anyone else from the U.S. to come here because, you know, until we figure this out because they're figuring out the issue with this list. That is so ironic. I know. They encouraged immigration from Mexico and other European countries, places that had more restrictions on slavery, and they had an increased military presence in the region. So they were trying, they were like, we see these people who live in this Texas province of Mexico,

kind of getting out of control. In 1833, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana becomes president of Mexico. So he's the one that you're thinking about. He's the big one. There's a battle that he becomes president during that I'm not covering right now, but there was a few constitutions. A couple of them were like, we can give Texas a little bit more freedom to do their own thing. But they ended up in one where they want to make sure that Texas is a part of Mexico and adhering to Mexico's laws, right? Yeah, that makes sense. I wrote no mas shenanigans, which I'm sure is what they said in that meeting. So on October 2nd, 1835, the Texas Revolution Begins.

Guess what? I didn't even write out who said this because it's so stupid, but someone said, come and take it, and I'm sure you've seen that on, like, all the bumper stickers in Texas. Yeah, it was probably Stephen F. Austin or... I don't think it was Austin. It was someone else, but...

Something booey or Houston or one of those guys. Anyway, but Ted Cruz tweeted it the other day, which made me laugh again. No, in Ted Cruz. The worst example. getting people in line to get their Texas passports. You give us a call, Ted Cruz, and you need FEMA. But, um, so someone responded...

Well, he's literally on his way to Mexico in the middle of, like, is he's fleeing the country? He'd be like, can Texas be part of Mexico again? So much warmer down here. Ugh, so funny. Um, so someone responded to that tweet. We've done that twice already. Like, we've already.

Um, but on March 2nd, 1836, Texas declares his independence. on March 6th, so we're going to, I'm going to tell you what happens and then tell you what happened of Alamo. So on March 6, 1836, the Alamo Falls, we'll talk about that in a second. After that, there's another battle of San Jacinto on August 21st, 1836, where the Texians win. And on September 1st, 1836, Texas elects Sam Houston as its president. Blah, blah, blah. 10 years later, they become part of the U.S. And then obviously they become part of the Confederacy and then back to the U.S. after that. right bumping around lots of lots of bouncing around yeah but we're here to talk about the alamo um i have

been there as well i went to a wedding that was like near the alamo my husband actually went to like elementary school and like it's part of junior high in san antonio so um we have friends who are still there because it had dad was in the military so they moved around a lot so some of his friends who are there we still um we still talk to so we were there for a wedding like 15 years ago but it was super fun um And right now, like, you think of it, you think of, like, the mission part of it, right? Yeah. You've seen the Peewee's Great Adventure where he's looking for the basement? No, I don't think I've seen that one.

What? So Peewee's Great Adventure, he, like, loses his bike. It's really good. We actually watched it recently after Pee or, um, oh, God, what's his name? I just had it. I know. It's Rudy, Ruth, uh, no. Jammit.

I could look it up, but after he passed away, Paul Rubens. Yeah, it was close. Yeah. After he passed away, we did watch it again. It's great. But he thinks that his bike is at the base center of the Alamo and he gets there and there's like, there's no basement. And everybody's laughing at him.

And it's like a whole thing. There is another story similar where JFK was doing a speech there during the campaign in 1960. And he was trying to leave, but there were so many people there. And he asked one of the women who worked there, he said, They're a back door. And she said, Senator, there are no back doors of the Alamo, only heroes. Because everyone died.

Stay on for him. Yeah. Also, there is a back door. Like, he could have gone out. She was being dramatic. So, here's a little bit of history of the Alamo. It's not just that building. That's like the museum that you like see right now.

It's actually like a big complex. And it was called the Mission San Antonio de Valero. And then they called it the Alamo. It was three acres of land, about 13. hundred square feet. There was a plaza in the middle. The chapel was on one side. And there was a barracks building with a bunch of rooms.

And they all had one door that went out to the middle. So it was kind of like a fortified. It was kind of a fort. Yeah. Exactly. The walls surrounding it were, you know, almost three feet thick and range from nine to 12 feet high. So they were pretty well in there, in the walls.

There were no holes to shoot out of, just as an aside. So there's no way to, like, shoot less you were like, standing over the wall. And then it's 1836, and this cast of characters kind of starts to get the Alamo. It's kind of a waystation between different battles. Some of the people who are involved will talk about them kind of one by one. So first talk about Travis. Travis is a piece of fucking work.

William B. Travis was a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army during the Texas Revolution. He had no reason to be at that. He had no like history of being a military. person, he just like got there and was like loud. He wrote a letter while he was there that was like to the people of Texas and all Americans in the world about how he like needed freedom and like needed help and all these things. Like that also has made him very, very famous because people like think of that as like bravery. When I am listening to like a book like this, I have my, I usually have my like notes app open and I'll put things in there that I want to remember, you know?

yeah the first note i took was don't forget that Travis had syphilis i just wonder how much history would be different if people weren't brutaled with syphilis yeah why i would assume didn't this come up with bango too where like bango's real with syphilis yeah all the time in these history stories are like and by the way it's syphilis and then they took a bunch of mercury and made a bunch of decisions that changed history and you're like yeah like what would history look like without mercury syphilis and lead I know for real for real um so syphilis fucks with your mind so he's just like kind of a

maniac some of his highlights are um when he became a teacher when he was younger and immediately slept with a student they did get married but they had a kid before they got married he created a newspaper but um it immediately went under because he didn't take care of it like the ads were upside down and like things were spelled wrong it was just like really shitty And he tried to be a lawyer, but he was laughed out of court. People were like, no. Like, you're just, you're a... I mean, I can actually resonate with that sentiment.

I understand. So he decided to go to Texas for the opportunity, you know. Wikipedia helped... I'm just going to quote Wikipedia on this because it's really funny. They said, so he decides to go to Texas for the opportunity. And Wikipedia said, quote, his wife trusted him to eventually return or send for her and his children. he did neither but he goes to Texas

and starts like getting riled up and he joins the Texas Army and so he becomes you know this military guy and he happens to be at the Alamo. The other guy who is there is James Bowie like the knife yeah he was a frontiersman fun job

he also this is the only thing I wrote down do you know in the 1970s Do you know the story that there was a man named Davy Jones who wanted to be a singer? Have you heard this? No. Do you know who Davy Jones is?

Davy Jones Locker? Yes, there's Davy Jones like the pirate. But there's also a singer named Davy Jones from The Monkeys. Oh, I know the Monkeys. Yeah, so the lead singer is Davy Jones. And there was another dude who was like, I really want to be a famous singer, but my name is Davy Jones, too. What do I do? And he was watching one of these Western movies about Jim.

buoy and he was like that sounds pretty cool so he changed his name to david bowie seriously isn't that fun yeah and i totally thought that was a coincidence no he changed his name just because he watched a movie about about the alamo and he was like that seems cool and i'm definitely going to say bowie instead of buoy this entire time from now on but it's hard yeah but isn't that fun yeah yeah so um so james bowie is there he probably doesn't like deserve the the um myth around like the knife you people he started to see it and then he started like mass produce it you know and then like sell it and all of that but he's part of the army and he's there um and then there's the king of the wild frontier who's that it's the guy who wears the armadillo hat the raccoon hat you know what's

funny i was thinking this whole time that our listener and my friend daniel he is going to listen to this and then texting me like you paid attention to absolutely nothing in school Well, maybe, maybe not, because I feel like the way Texas teaches it is not the way I'm telling it right now. You know, I mean, no, because when you said back, too, and being very, you know, oh, yeah, can you imagine having an armadillo hat. You don't, yeah, like, why would I ever assume it's like, what? I think it could be good to wearing, like, a horse because it's like a helmet. Yeah, wouldn't you just get leprosy, like all over your head? Like, it would be a horrible, you know, wear the skin of Armadillo.

So, yeah. I don't think anyone does that, no. You're right. They do carry leprosy. Nobody, even in this story, now that you said, I was like, oh, yeah, it was obviously a raccoon. So, like, I just, sorry, Dan. Well, Davy Crockett is more folklore than real man. He was named David Crockett. He didn't really love the name Davy Crockett. He was a U.S. Congressman. Did you know that?

And he voted against some things he didn't like, he didn't like that West Point was just sons of the wealthy and he didn't love Andrew Jackson's horrible shit that he did to everyone, which is like fair. But eventually he did leave and he said something very famous. I don't know if this is 100% true, but I did hear one of the January 6th wives say this after she, after her husband was sent to prison. But he, David Crockett allegedly famously said, I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done. But if not, they might go to hell and I would go to Texas. So you all can go to hell.

I'm going to go to Texas. Was the wife a representative or something? No, she didn't say that part. She said, you all can go to home. I'm going to go back to Texas. Got it. So that's who, those are the three famous guys that are there. And they're there with also some other military people.

They have some food. They have some, there's some women in Shult. who are there at the same time, but their job is to defend this fort from the Mexicans who are camping around them and coming to, you know, obviously, like, fighting this war. The Texans think the war is slowing down. They have the alamo. It has weapons and a strategy in place. Sam Houston sends Jim Bowie there. Travis joins him and they share a command. So on February 23rd, Santa Ana's men start a siege. So they surround the alamo and they can't get, they can't get out. they inside they're like kind of cleaning up making sure they have all the food that they have trying to get water they dig a well but it weekends a wall they're kind of like bumbling around and the next day like the second day of the siege um

buoy gets really sick and he is bedridden for the rest of the time and so Travis is now in command um at some point Travis may or may not but probably not drew the line in the sand do you remember this yeah tell me tell me about this this was when And they realized, so I remember it as being later on, like in the siege where it was mostly self-evident that everybody was going to die, like a horrible death. And he drew a line in the sand saying that, you know, it wasn't about surrender. It was something about like you can escape. I don't know how they would have escaped exactly. But that was the option I think that was posed to them was you're either with me. You're going to stay here. We're going to just die together or you can escape. Yeah. I don't think he actually did that. I watched a video from the Alamo like museum website and it was it was cute it was like a guy being like this is where we have they have this like brass line on the ground and they're like this is where Travis Drew's line they're like she's they're like you probably didn't but like we like to think he did and you're like okay it's better story you can have that that's fun um it's also when he writes his letter his to the people of Texas and all Americans in the world he says part of it says quote I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who will never

forget what is due to his own hour and the own honor and that of his country victory or death like else he also had no choice like he was going to die yeah i mean at that point at that point like go out cool yeah um historian mary debor petite called the letter the letter is considered by many as one of the masterpieces of american patriotism because he's really just like i'm going to die here i mean was he was they shooting to be part of america or in No, which is hilarious. That, like, people point to it as, like, a very American thing. And you're like, no, no, he was trying to be a Texian and have its own Texas things.

They didn't want the American roles either because America was also leading towards abolition, you know? It's like, I saw another thing that someone on Instagram was like someone said, like, you know, Robert E. Lee was a great general and a great patriot. and someone was like, no, no. I mean, he was probably a great general, but you can't be a great patriot, also to see from the union. 100%. Exactly. Exactly. So reinforcements arrive on March 4th. Bowie's sister-in-law is said to have gone to Santa Ana and asked for mercy, and that kind of pissed him off.

And that kind of made him, like, move forward with the siege. So on March, so the siege of the Alamo was on March 6th, the Mexican stormed. in over the wall at 5.30 in the morning, which is not nice. That's a weird. Taylor, we would, we would have so slept through that. Well, the first third people to die were the guards outside the Alamo and guess how they died? They were asleep. Yeah, they're dying their sleep. Yeah, that would have been us. I'm like, what? Just stab me. I'm already, I'm already down. I'm already off the ground. You'd be a fool to put me on, like, morning duty. You know, that would be on you. I mean, they kind of picked our contemporaries, it sounds like.

So those people died first. The non-combatants, there were some women and children there moved to the chapel. And the Mexicans came over the wall in such a dense wave that it wasn't good for anyone. So the Mexicans couldn't move back once they started moving forward because there were so many of them like running into the Alamo and like trying to climb the walls. Like their ladders didn't really work. So like trying to come the wall. They were trying to jump over the gates, trying to do all these things. And they're coming so fast that the Texians inside can't even hold their guns straight

because they're coming so fast with them. And so, like, a lot of Mexicans died in this, but, like, all of the Texians died, you know. But they were just, like, being over, overrun. They did, which is kind of fun. The Texians had cannons. This is fun, relative. But they filled them with things like nails and broken horseshoes and stuff. and, like, spray that into the crowd of Mexicans.

And so, like, that stopped some of them from coming toward them. Yeah, Taylor, that is fun. That is so fun. Unexpected. You know? Like, I just could hit by a horseshoe. Like, what's happening? I thought I was in a palace so weird.

Did a horse just throw a shoe at me? Like, that's funny. And then you're dead, so, oh, that's funny. Travis is one of the first people to die. He was, he was shot, like, almost immediately. some Texians may have surrendered, but they were executed. There was no, like, mercy. There were three attacks in 15 minutes.

Each room had one door, again, like into the interior, and they had tried to, like, dig holes and, like, have holes to be able to shoot out of them. But the Mexicans would just knock the door down and just shoot into the darkness, you know, and just, like, kill everybody who happened to be there. Crockett and his men were some of the last to die. They ran out of, this is very brave of, to, to say. I mean, I think like we said, we'll talk about it. Like heroic isn't the word

because of what they were defending technically, but they ran out of bullets and they used their rifles as clubs. They fought to the end. Bowie probably died in bed. A lot of people don't want to believe that because they want him to be this like

strong frontiers man, but he was super, super sick. So, one historian said the best bet is that he died with his back against the wall. in the corner of his bed trying to stab with his knife. The bayonet thing. No, like his booey knife.

Oh, like literally just stab it? Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So all of those main guys are dead. The last thing that happens is someone tries to blow up the gunpowder, one of the Texians does so that the Mexicans can't have it. So he tries to blow up the gunpowder.

If he had done it, he would have killed all the women and children. But he didn't do it. He got killed before he did that. That's like, that's for the best. Like, we don't want the women and children to death. one of the women who lived was a woman named Susanna Dickinson. She sold her story and would go on tour and talk about it and get it. It would get more and more cessational for like the rest of her life.

One thing is she met with Santa Ana and Santa Ana offered to adopt her daughter and educate her in Mexico City. But Susanna said no. And all of the women given, you know, later later the day or the next year, whatever when they left were given a blanket and two pesos and told just to go. I thought they killed everyone but one woman No there were a couple other women And I think an enslaved person was also let go And because they were like, this is not your fault You should know

So wait, how many people were there total And how many survived? Let me tell you. First of all, it was all over by 6.30 in the morning So like 25 hours later No, no, an hour later Over an hour.

Oh, it was the same, oh. Yeah, yeah. Taylor, we, you know, now that I think about it, actually, it would have been fine. We couldn't have been the last ones there, and we still would have been killed because we still wouldn't have woken up in time. Totally. Or you'd wake up and be like, hey, guys, anyone made breakfast? Oh, no. This is really loud.

Like, I don't know what you guys are doing out there. It's weird that I don't, it's weird that I don't smell coffee, you guys. Because it's like 635. I thought that there would be coffee brewing already. Is that not happening today? Do you smoke good at? Are we not just not? So that's your question.

Good question. There were 2,000 Mexican soldiers involved in the assault. 400 to 600 of them died. So about 25% of them died, which is a lot. Most, so there's somewhere between 182 and 257 Texians. So who knows? Yeah. A couple hundred of them died.

Some people think that one person, Henry Warnel, escaped. But other people don't think that that's true. They think that everyone, all of the men were killed, for sure. The Mexicans who died were buried. The Texians were burned. And then a few weeks later, the Mexicans lost to the Texians in the Battle of San Jacinto. And the Texians win. And Texas has an independence for the next 10 years until it joins the Confederacy.

So that's basically what happened on that day. Any fun facts that you remember that you want to share? yeah now I remember why I thought what I thought that they killed every way and the reason is is because I was a little boy and I was like wait a minute why am I the one that is killed and actually now as an adult I'm like can we visit this whole women and children thing like I like why do I have to die like Taylor if you want to listen if you're on a boat with me Okay, children, leave children out of the equation, okay? Let's just like apples to apples here, right? Same age, same experience level, whatever. I mean, why on earth do you get to live and I have to, like, what? I'm a lady.

I understand that. And as a feminist, I should totally be agreeing with you. But also, I'm like, these are my ladies think. I need to be saved. I'm a lady. Bullshit. Put me on the boat. You stay in the Titanic car.

I'm a lady. Bullshit. I'm, oh, man. Okay. You know what? I can never campaign on this, but I do think I have a point here. Fair, but I'm not giving that up. I'm not giving women and children up first. Okay, children I can accept. Yes, children are fine. But also, like, they're not going to be able to take care of themselves. Yeah, so let me stay with the kids. Put, like, ten children on life up by themselves.

They're going to die in, like, a day. You, Lee, I, why can't I go with them? I'm stronger. I could actually. provide more like i mean good point you make you make good points i believe in equality of the sexes i know i guess i do too i guess that's fair um so you know a lot about the lamo because you are from texas and there's a big part in the book forget the alamo about how in seventh grade you go on a trip to the alamo like that's a big thing and during that time a lot of of Mexican children who are Mexican American find out that they're Mexican, you know,

like they get there and they're excited and for the time they leave, a lot of their friends are like, you're Mexican, you're the bad guy. Yeah. So like that's really hard. We're a huge part of the Texas population. Which is interesting because Texas culture and Mexican, so that's the thing, like Texas isn't like the South South. Like it's funny because growing up, I was like, everybody was like, oh, you know, you learn about the Confederacy and like Texas is a part of the south and then when i grew up and i started going to like alabama in arkansas and miss i was like oh oh this is deep south this is very different because here mexian culture like it's just like a part of like life like it's like i mean it's in this like i don't know it's so it's just strange to me like

learning about how things are in those remote parts of like the deep deep south it's just like No, it's different. It's dramatically different. And, like, Texas is its own unique thing. Yeah, I think that's fair. Which is strange, which is strange because, like, I do remember that. I do remember taking those filters and being like, oh, so the Mexicans are the bad guys. Exactly.

And then you, like, age, like, maybe five years. And then you're like, oh, actually, we're, like, all one thing. Like, kind of, like, one pod here. Yeah. But that's really, it's like a right of passage for a lot of mechurches for a lot of Mexican-American kids, and they talk about how awful it is for them, you know, to, like, go on that field trip and, like, feel that way. But one of the reasons, so the Alamo is an example of, you know, Texas bravery. And sure, like, they definitely were there and they were definitely going to die. But it wasn't a huge deal or, like, a huge thing in the popular culture until in 195, there were a string of films called the magical world of Disney. And five of them were about Davy Crockett. So Walt Disney made these. And that's, you know, so Walt Disney made these. And that's, the king of the wild frontier stuff people went nuts there were like the number of raccoon tail

hats went up by like 800,000 percent that year sure that Christmas of 1955 um and that's when the legend starts to like really stick and in the meantime john wayne is trying to get an alamo movie produced and john wayne is famously like he did not fight in war that were around when he was of war fighting age. When Pearl Harbor happened, John Wayne was 34 and he had a family, so he was exempt from going to World War II. And he always felt weird about that. Like, that's something that he tries to make up for in his, like, personas, you know? And so he made a movie. It didn't come out until 1960. And by then, it was kind of too late to get for that, like, wave of, like, Alamo fever. Wait, John Wayne was 34 during World War II? Yeah.

Wow. So, yeah, he would have been. Hold on. You're not. You're not. You're not. You're numbers right he was like 120 years old now yeah he's not like no yeah he's obviously yeah but he between this movie in 1960 and it's it's free with ads on amazon prime and i watched like the first part of it have you ever seen a john wayne movie no i feel like i haven't either because it feels like john wayne is doing a john wayne impression when i'm watching it no it's so funny he goes like he's like all right senorita well i'm gonna take my horse out to the barn senorita yeah he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like the rock or like ryan reynolds where like he's literally just him not ryan reynolds um oh god yeah ryan reynolds like lily's husband who is that

ryan reynolds yeah yeah yeah is he's the same at every movie he's the same every movie is like yes exactly there's no acting it's just like you're just being yourself and we just decided as public that we like who you are exactly like Deadpool's the same characters all your other characters right right exactly so we're gonna let you do that exactly so that's what you should i mean you should watch a little bit of it it's really funny there's just so much of the there's so much spanish in it which i think is also interesting because you're like yeah they're a part of mexico you know um but they have them like kind of like leading up to it the guy who plays Travis is very very handsome but um it's just it's just really funny and if you haven't watched a job

movie you just all you know is the impressions then they're all true gangis con oh i think maybe it's a jenghis but i think maybe it's just like that's the thing that stuck out like when i thought of like john wayne was like him trying to pass himself as mongolian it's like seriously this is the best guy we could get to play a mongolian that's a lot it's a lot in there it's called the conquer is that what you said yeah i'm looking at the pictures in there a lot yeah it's a bad come on like what on

who casts this it was like this this works like he looks like a clown like I should watch that because I wonder if he does the same voice

he's like hello senorita I'm Jenghis Khan See at least Yule Brenner he looked weird enough to wear he like had a weird

looking head and so he could pass off as being like vaguely from CM, I think it was in that movie, The King and I. Oh yeah. He's actually like Russian and I think he like died of like horrible, horrible like cancer when he was like 45 years old. But anyways

sorry, go ahead. I'm debrailing us again. No, Brenner is so cool looking. He's so cool. No, he died who was 65. Was it horrible cancer though? Did I get that part of it right? I don't know, but he's Russian but like Asian Russian. Mongolian. Like that's what it was. Like that's He was just, he was from a steep or step or whatever.

Like, that's kind of, yeah, he died of lung cancer. Yeah, he died of lung cancer. Oh, he looks cool as Ramsey's the Second, the Ten Commandments, also from 1956. Okay, we're derailed, but. That is a cool picture. Right? He looks like a cat. So.

It looks like cat. Right? Do you see it? Does he come and look like cat? Yeah, he looks cool. I like it. I like his vibe. I should watch a King and I again.

Very fun. So, okay, what am I even talking about? The Alamo. Yeah, what are we doing here? Great. Okay, so that's John Wayne. Do you remember the three people that I named at the beginning of the story? John Wayne.

Oh, yeah. Phil Collins. Mm-hmm. And Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson. Yeah. So Lyndon Johnson would talk about the Alamo so much. He would read this poem about the Alamo that his mom used to read to him when he was a little kid and would talk about it.

And he got to the point where he'd be like, when my ancestors and my great great grandfather was at the alamo and people were like what just making stuff up like it was none of that was true but he was just like so excited about it he would bring it up all the time when he was like doing his own policy stuff um and i'll talk about phil collins in a minute well let me do talk let me talk about it now so there's an alamo museum that phil collins has um donated his collection of alamo shit to because he he's obsessed with it he goes to he would go to san antonio all the time talk to the curators talk to all these people he has all this memorabilia and shit that like probably isn't real

you know yeah like like who knows how would you date how would you yeah exactly how would you know right so like there's there's stuff where like people have found like knives like around who even knows it's a city now but like knives around you know where like oh this must have been from like the mexicans were heather encampment or this must have been from where where, you know, from here and here. And then most people are like, there's no way to verify that. But Phil Collins is in cahoots with this dude who's like, hey, guess what? All I did was like, polish my knife.

And there is a J.B engraved in it. Can you believe it? You did that like 25 times. You're like, no, I don't think that's true. So the Phil Collins collection is iffy. But it's still up to debate whether or not it's even going to be displayed at the Elmo. It's still kind of back and forth. So fun.

It's a fun little. Yeah. Well, thank you. So the Alamo was actually run by the daughters of Texas. And anything with the word daughters in it, I think should be looked at with suspicion. I agree. Because like the daughters of the American Revolution, which is like you can join if you can prove that like your family goes back to the American Revolution here in America. In 19 something, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned very publicly because the D.A.R.

wouldn't let an African American singer, Marion Anderson, perform. at an event. And Ellen Roosevelt was like, that's ridiculous. I'm out. And I think that she's not like the only one who has done that. So the daughters of Texas, they had a terrible job taking care of the Alamo. They only cared about like the myth. They really would sell kind of like crappy chotchkees, which I'm sure they should still do. But it was kind of falling apart. And there was some embezzlement on behalf of the daughters of Texas. In the, in the early 19, It belonged to the city of San Antonio, and there were two women in 1903 who tried to save it together. There was a woman named Adina Amelia de Zavala and a woman named Clara Driscoll. Clara was super rich. She was an heiress, and she really wanted to take out a big part of the Alamo complex and make it into a park, people to walk around in. But Amelia DeZvalla was like, some of these buildings that we have here that are used as like literally a grocery store in 1903. She's like, I believe this is where the bearer.

were like this is more important than a park is digging underneath this building and finding the original barracks because that's where people died you know and so the two of them clashed and they clashed in the clash and clara ended up winning and she like got her park and when they eventually did excavate underneath the buildings um adina was correct that is where the barracks were and that should have been like preserved better but clara because she was rich to give all that money is buried at the alamo and adina is not um And so the daughters of Texas were audited in 2009, and the control was given back to the city. There's a whole thing with Jeb Bush's son, George Bush, like promising different things.

And like when do we, he was like a city congressman, city council person, senator somewhere in there? I think he was like, it was like something weird. It was like water commission or something. Yeah. And he was like, you know, trying to figure out like, you know, trying to make it part of his platform, you know, what do we save? What do we, what do we do we do? But the big thing is, like, the way that they're teaching, the way that they teach the Alamo is, you know, they're required to teach them as being heroic, you know, you're like,

you're brave in that you stayed there until you died, you know, we didn't have any choice or whatever. But like the, and it was a war. And so everyone is like going through something, but also what they were fighting for was very clearly to have Texas. Well, the heroism part was trying to save the women and children who wouldn't sacrifice themselves, selfish. No. It's not like that baby was going to save anybody. Taylor, if

we were being attacked, I would for sure throw you at the bayonet and run away the opposite direction. I think we should give babies guns. See, we come full circle. Like eventually it ends up with arming teachers and babies.

I don't believe you should do that. I'm a hard now on that, but you're making some good points. If you're going to start throwing babies at people, you should at least have guns. You can't start using babies as like cannon fodder. What I'm in there with the horseshoes? There you go.

That will surprise them. That is way more surprising than a horseshoe. What if instead of a cannonball, it's like a little baby with a cape? And then they have to drop their weapons and catch it. And then they'll kind of guard. I don't think they would catch it, but I do think baby shrapnel is like a really good name for a new Bap song. I think they catch it.

Yeah, maybe. I think nine times out of ten, they would drop their guns to catch that baby. It'd be like a, it's hard to not do that. We will only know if we test this. Okay, well, when we live in different countries and I live in the Republic of California and you live in the Republic of Texas. When we go to war? Yes.

We go to war with each other. We can test that. And you'll be like, it's a baby. It's like, Taylor! As you catch the baby. and then get stabbed. But damn it, I knew she was going to do this to me.

But you would catch it. I know you would. Thank you. Thank you for believing me. But yeah, that's it. I really recommend the book, forget the Alamo. I'll put it in the show notes.

It's really fun. You know, they talk most of it is about like after the battle of the Alamo, you know, all these people are talking about like what we should do with it. Like, what is Texas history? All of that kind of stuff. And then the Phil Collins stuff is hilarious and bizarre

because you're like, What is he doing? He was buying a bunch of crap for a lot of money. Didn't Matthew McConaughey do a movie? There's one with, there's one from the 80s where Alec Baldwin plays Travis. Alec Baldwin? Yeah.

Movies. Okay. Oh, yes. Yeah, it's called. Oh, wait, no, that was, that was Costner did it. We got the cost. And that's it. Is that really good? I guess it is. Yeah. I guess, well, it's time for another one. Isn't it though? Maybe. I don't know. It's fun. I like being in San Antonio. San Antonio is very cool.

The river walk is a fake river, which I thought was very strange. I did not know that it was a fake river. I actually would have assumed that that's part of like the other story we did about the Colorado. I would have assumed that's part of the Colorado. It might mean the water's probably from the Colorado, but it's like it looks like the river. You do it like six flags. you like go on the like a lazy river yeah it's like exactly it's like lazy river

um they say the 2004 movie is probably the most historically accurate it is produced by Ron Howard so it's probably pretty good and you have

Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston and Billy Bob Oh my God Patrick Wilson is Travis oh my god you love Patrick Wilson I love Patrick Wilson

I love Patrick Wilson I think he needs had this Emily Dishanel's in it that's weird really yeah I wonder if she talks like bones because the only thing I think of I've literally never seen her anything else

this can be good this can be a pretty fun watch actually yeah it says you will never forget on the thing um yeah also like you know there were um they do say

in this IMDB thing that I should have said earlier is that it wasn't just white people, it was also Tejano people as well. So like there were, there were, you know, people who lived in Mexico and were more Tejano background who were there as well. Yeah, of course. I mean, again, like, that's the thing, like, like, Texas

culture and, like, Mexican culture is like, so intertwined. I know. It's so interesting. And yet they're, you know, putting razor wire in the Rio Grande. So here's something that's interesting about all that is, again, being raised here and then having lived in, like, Florida, is that a lot of Hispanic cultures veer, right, as opposed to life. Because they're afraid of, yes, they're afraid of dictatorship.

Yeah. So it's, it's case by case, I think. So I think that in the case of Florida, where a lot of people there are from. further South America and Cuba theirs is a dictatorship fear and communism fear and so that's a very

very staunchly predictable Republican vote in any election and in a place like Texas I'm having a hard time kind of placing what that is I don't know I don't know I can't even begin to speculate

on what that where that come obviously the religion piece is a big part of it so yeah I was going to see that life thing is a part of a piece of that um i don't know i don't know it's interesting it goes back to what i've always kind of said which is like when it comes to like who people are what they believe and like all that stuff like you can't really put a box on a demographic and say they're

all like this everybody has their own intent and their own motives and their own reasons being the way they are and we say they have but it is interesting like i would say like texas does have that unique spirit of being weirdly multicultural compared to, like, what you would consider the South. Even, like, if you go to, like, Northern Florida, Northern Florida is fucking scary. Like, I don't like being there. Like, it's not, it's funny. I'm actually going there, like, three weeks.

So it'll be nerve-wracking a little bit. Yeah. But, who knows? That's fun, though. That's a really exciting topic. I actually have wanted to go to San Antonio. Sam's only like 45 minutes away from me. I want to make that trip again, and I just haven't.

Most because it's just, God, there's nothing better than being hungry after a day of like, swore in the Alamo, then going to the boardwalk eating just chips and guac with margaritas outside. It's just like the best day. I have the, when I went there, one of the people in our party grew people, she was very much like, I have to have oatmeal for breakfast. We were like, okay. So we walked like a mile and a half. Past 10,000 restaurants, people were having the best fucking time, like, leaning out the window, drinking margaritas screaming.

And we ended up in, like, the bottom, the basement of a mall so you get at oatmeal. Wait, who was this? Just someone, one of my friends. So we were like, oh, my God, like how much fun everybody is having. Because we had so much good food there. The wedding I went to, I think had a big potato bar. That is so fun. I love those.

Or I had like a big potato. But it was like, I'm guessing. Man, I bet they're still married. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're kids or teenagers. Yeah. Like when you plan a wedding that cool, how can you not last, right?

It was, it was lovely. It was lovely. Yeah, it was like our first big trip together that Juan and I had. Anyway, it was a long time ago, but very fun. It's a fun story. And, yeah. Dan, text me. Let me know what you thought.

I hope this is one you listened to. Yeah, Texians, Texas people. Yeah, Texas don't leave. Just like, calm down. No one wants to do that. No one's to deal with us. No one's going to do it. If anything's going to happen, it's going to like that movie Civil War that is coming out with, was it Jason Plumman or whatever his name is?

It looks really good. Oh, good. I'm sure we need that to pile people up. I saw the preview when I went and watched. I forgot what I went to watch, but it was recent. And I saw that preview. I was like, this is not what we need right now. But it also is really fun.

So, sweet. Well, Taylor, thank you for sharing that. That was an awesome story. and I'm looking forward to hearing some feedback from when we publish it. Oh, my God. The poster for Civil War has people with guns at the top of the Statue Liberty. We do not need this. It's just painting a picture of our future.

I just want to live my life and not do that. It's, I mean, it's mostly not us who are going to be screwed. It's going to be like two generations from us. I know. I do have an email if you have a second. Yeah, please. So my cousin Lindsay, who we talked about earlier, who is, like I said, just the smartest person I know, literally,

wrote an email about the, you know, saying Native American and talking a little bit about, like, the episodes that we did on Carl Mai and Lewis and Clark, and she has, she numbered her email because she, she's very academic. But our first point is we should absolutely go to a powwow if we're ever, if we ever are near one. It sounds super fun and they're super fun. So we should do that. As for the way we refer to native peoples, you know, referring to them by their tribe or even by their clan would be even better if we knew that. So we're going to try to do that as much

as possible. And then number three, one thing that one of us said that I think I definitely say in a way that I need to like clarify and talk and that I know is not correcting to say is like when we say when we say all Native Americans were killed and like destroyed like that's not true there are definitely people still alive you know when they are when when when have we ever said that I feel like we might we she said one of us offhandedly was like yeah and then like we destroyed all of the Native Americans like I don't know exactly what we said but like I feel like it's want to make it clear like I don't want to ever not talk about people who are still If we said that, it was probably meant to be flippant and not, like, literal.

Exactly. I just want to, like, put that in there. And then also, you know, something that we have that is very, very real is, like, you know, how Germany has their, you know, how they feel about Native Americans. And, like, we still have so many sports teams that have, like, really not cool names. You know? The Redskins was the biggest, obvious one. So I actually read a book And I should find it

And during COVID I was reading some books About the Native American Experience And one of the books I read Said that Redskin meant a pile of bloody bodies Like that's where it comes from

Not like a pigment of your skin But like they were like You know So that's even worse And it was bad You know So And I like the name commander

I think it's kind of cool I don't know And then yeah So just a little bit A little bit of that She recommended the book, Playing Indian by Philip J. Deloria. So I'm going to read that and take a look at it. Yeah.

And learn all and far. Is, are you just on a kick lately? Because you did Carl Mye last week and now you're doing the alum of this week. Is there like German, Western and then American West? Like, is there like a... You know, that's so interesting because I do think my top of next week is going to be German, but I wasn't thinking about going back and forth being German and the American West. I don't know where it's coming from

I should impact that somehow maybe with you later but yeah no I don't know I was thinking American West and I have another American West story to tell you I was going to do a German story

next week and then a couple more and then I have some fun things in the hopper for women's history month in March sweet and then we can discuss

the whole women and children thing during women's history month oh my God's so funny we should I'm sure there's a good reason why that is a thing. I remember, I'm sorry everyone who doesn't care about this, but one of the Dan Carlin's think it's a Celtic Holocaust one where he talks about how like the Romans just like killed all of the Celts mostly

and then some of them went up to Ireland. But the women in those tribes of people would go with them to battle. And if their husbands came back, not injured, they'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? You didn't fight her enough? I mean, that was, yeah, I think it was like Spartan. I mean, that was a lot of cultures, I think. Yeah. So I'd be like, you know what? I'm going to stay home.

One, go fight to the death. Give me a call later, but I don't think I'm going to go. Listeners, if you have an opinion of this, please let us know. I would, but I don't want to. Cool. Well, thank you, Farrth. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you, everyone. We can go ahead. Oh, yeah, write to us at duneafelpod at gmail.com on the socials at

Duma.fel pod. Tell your friends. Tell your friends. All your friends or your family. Grab their phones and then subscribe them to us without any fun. That'd be great. Five stars. Five stars.

Sweet. I'm going to go ahead and cut us off. Taylor, thank you very much. And.