History turns to legend, and legends inevitably leave pieces of the truth behind.
Everyone who grew up in Texas, especially those like me who grew up in San Antonio, knows what happened at the Alamo 180 years ago today.
The Battle of the Alamo shaped our identity as Texans and helped to make this state, for both good and ill, what it is today. So remember the Alamo today, but also remember that history is more art than science—a human endeavor subject to our faulty memories and romanticized notions of the past.
![Theodore Gentilz (Texas State Library) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Fall-of-the-alamo-gentilz_1844.jpg "Theodore Gentilz (Texas State Library) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
