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1900: " The Great Hurricane"
Sept. 8 – the greatest natural disaster in human terms ever to strike North America, destroys much of Galveston and kills 6,000 people there. -
1910: First military air flight
March 2 – Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois makes the first military air flight in a Wright brothers plane at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. The seven-and-a-half-minute flight marks the shaky beginnings of U.S. Air Force. -
1911-1920: Mexican Civil War
1911-1920 The Mexican civil war spills across the border, as refugees seek safety, combatants seek each other, and Texas settlements are raided for supplies by all sides in the fighting. Pancho Villa and his followers are active along the border during some of this time. -
1937: Massive Explosion in Rusk County
March 18 – A massive explosion, blamed on a natural-gas leak beneath the London Consolidated School building in Rusk County, kills an estimated 296 students and teachers. Subsequent deaths of people injured in the explosion bring the death count to 311. As a result, the Legislature requires that a malodorant be added to the odorless gas so that leaks can be more easily detected. -
1943: Race Riot in Beaumont
June 15-16 – A race riot in Beaumont leads to a declaration of martial law. The incident, in which more than 200 were arrested, resulted in the death of two blacks and one white -
1947: French-owned SS Grandcamp explodes Texas City harbor
April 16 – The French-owned SS Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate, explodes in the Texas City harbor, followed the next morning by the explosion of the SS High Flyer. The disaster kills almost 600 and injures at least 4,000 more. The concussion is felt 75 miles away in Port Arthur, and the force creates a 15-foot tidal wave. -
1948: Lyndon B. Johnson defeats Coke Stevenson
August – Lyndon B. Johnson defeats Coke Stevenson by 87 votes for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate in the primary runoff. The winning margin in the disputed vote is registered in Ballot Box No. 13 in Jim Wells County. -
1956: First Hispanic elected to the state Senate
Nov. 6 – Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio becomes the first Hispanic elected to the state Senate since 1848 when Jóse Antonio Navarro, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, served. -
1962: NASA Manned Spacecraft Center
March 1 – NASA opens the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. The center moves to a new campus-like building complex in 1964. It is renamed Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on Aug. 17, 1973. -
1966: Charles Whitman shooting
Aug. 1 – Charles Whitman shoots 46 people from the observation deck of the main-building tower on The University of Texas campus in Austin. The fatalities number 17, including an unborn child at 8 months, Whitman's wife and mother who were killed before he went to the tower, and a victim who spent the rest of his life on kidney dialysis, and whose death in 2001 was ruled a homicide from the incident. -
1970: Prohibitions districts from assigning students to schools on the basis of race
November — Federal Judge William Wayne Justice of Tyler orders the Texas Education Agency to assume responsibility for desegregating public schools and to prohibit districts from assigning students to schools on the basis of race. -
1993: Federal agents storm the compound called Mount Carmel
April 19 – Ending a siege that began on Feb. 28, federal agents storm the compound called Mount Carmel near Waco, where cult leader David Koresh and his followers, called Branch Davidians, had reportedly been storing a large cache of assault weapons. The assault and ensuing fire kill four agents and 86 Branch Davidians.