The biggest, bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil took place in a sandy valley in Atascosa County near the Medina River in 1813, twenty-three years before the battles of the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto. Estimates of up to 1,000 American and Mexican republicans were killed or executed in the last major encounter of Spanish forces in Texas. Spaniards called it the battle of "El Encinal de Medina." In American history it is known as the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition or as the "First Texas Revolution." The gruesome battle halted and destroyed the American filibustering expedition that had...

The Sax Man is a fixture on the Cleveland streets, blowing his idiosyncratic mix of tunes through a battered sax, and providing a soundtrack for rush hour commuters, office workers on lunch break, or fans of the city's sports teams pouring from the downtown stadiums. Most everyone who has set foot in downtown Cleveland has seen or heard the Sax Man. Few know the story of how he ended up on the streets playing for tips after a brush with musical fame. Ted Schwarz was one of those people passing the Sax Man as we walked to his office, but he stopped, listened to the music, and started asking...