State

Today is San Jacinto Day, a state holiday observing the April 21, 1836, battle near Houston in which a Texas army led by Gen. Sam Houston defeated Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Historians cite it as the decisive battle in Texas gaining independence from Mexico. Sam Houston's approximately 900 men, infuriated by the deaths of about 550 comrades at the Alamo and the Goliad massacre, took just 18 minutes to win a battle that left 630 Mexican soldiers dead and another 730 in captivity, according to historical accounts. Santa Anna agreed to pull back his other armies.

Only nine Texans died at San Jacinto, won with relative ease because Santa Anna failed to post lookouts during a siesta and camped just beyond a ridge that left him vulnerable to a sneak attack.

An inscription on the monument's base spells out why some historians have listed the battle as among the most important in human history:

"The freedom of Texas from Mexico won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War, resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Almost one third of the present area of the American nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed sovereignty."