Afraid no editor would take the time to read a two-and-a-half-foot thick manuscript, a wealthy Waco businessman mailed the first 300 pages of his record-breaking novel to an East Coast publishing house sometime in mid-August 1951.

    Madison Alexander Cooper, Jr. was born in 1894 with, as he good-naturedly conceded, “at least a silver-plated spoon in my mouth.”  His father was a well-to-do grocer and prominent pillar of the Central Texas city, that would be “Matt” Cooper’s home for life.

    After graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in English, he fought in France as a doughboy captain.  Returning in one piece to Waco, he honored his parents’ wishes by taking his rightful place in the family business.

   Doak Walker ended the speculation about his future in football by announcing on July 29, 1955 that he had agreed to play one more season with the Detroit Lions.

    Grantland Rice, dean of American sportswriters, called him “the most authentic all-around player in football history.”  Doak Walker could do everything – run, pass, catch, punt and kick – and did it with a modest grace that endeared him to fans who never had heard of Southern Methodist University.

On July 12, 1839, Sam Houston wrote his favorite pen pal, who was young enough to be his daughter, to say how much he missed her and his beloved Texas.

The three sides of the best known romantic triangle in Lone Star history first laid eyes on each other in 1833.  Fourteen year old Anna Raguet had settled recently in Nacogdoches with her father Henry.  Dr. Robert Irion, 15 years the beauty’s senior, had buried his wife the previous year, and Sam Houston was at 40 only four years removed from the scandalously short marriage to a teenaged debutante that led to his resignation as governor of Tennessee.

The case against Monroe Edwards, con artist and fugitive from Lone Star justice, went to a New York jury on June 17, 1842.

The nation hardly notice when Bobby Baker, the poster boy for political corruption, got out of prison on June 2, 1972.