Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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The events of October 22 · Read the full edition → · More from October 22 →
18361776 Club

Sam Houston takes the oath as Texas's first president

Burnet steps aside as Houston, fresh off defeating Santa Anna, takes on the job of running the republic he fought for.

Seven months after declaring independence from Mexico, the Republic of Texas still ran on an interim government cobbled together during wartime. On October 22, 1836, Sam Houston was sworn in as its first elected president, taking over from interim president David G. Burnet. Houston had defeated Stephen F. Austin and Henry Smith at the polls. He now faced an empty treasury, an unresolved war footing with Mexico, and the unglamorous work of turning a battlefield win into a working government…

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More from October 22
1777

Six hundred defenders at Fort Mercer turn back 1,200 Hessians

Colonel von Donop promised his men he would take the fort or die there. By nightfall he was shot through the thigh and left for dead.
1962

Kennedy goes on television: Soviet missiles sit in Cuba, and the Navy will stop every ship

The president calls it a quarantine, not a blockade, so Moscow cannot call it an act of war.
1879

Edison's thread-filament bulb glows for thirteen and a half hours before it dies

A length of carbonized cotton thread, sealed in glass, outlasts every filament Edison had tried before it.
18841776 Club
San Domingo alone votes no; France and Brazil abstain.
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More from Expansion & Antebellum
1854

Pierce signs the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the Missouri Compromise's thirty-four-year line is gone

Douglas's "popular sovereignty" doctrine now lets settlers in both territories vote on slavery themselves, erasing the 36°30' ban that has held since 1820.
1846

Thirty-three armed settlers seize Sonoma before dawn; California declares itself a republic

General Vallejo is taken prisoner in his own home, 170 government horses are seized, and a hand-sewn bear flag now flies over the barracks.
1859

Captain Brooks claims a mid-Pacific atoll for the United States; he calls it the Middlebrook Islands

The sealing ship Gambia raised the flag under the Guano Islands Act, planting a U.S. claim a third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo.
1846

Sloat raises the flag over Monterey; Mexico's California falls without a shot

Sailors and marines from three warships walk ashore unopposed, ending both Mexican rule and the weeks-old California Republic declared at Sonoma.
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