John Bastonia, age 13, of Demon, Texas, for his question:
WHEN WAS THE ALAMO BUILT?
The Alamo is one of America's most famous buildings. A former Franciscan mission located in San Antonio, Texas, it was built in 1722 and later used as a fort. It is now preserved as a state monument.
The Alamo was the site of the most heroic episode of the Texas war of independence from Mexico. On February 23, 1836, a Mexican force of about 4,000 men commanded by Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, a general who later became president of Mexico, reached the outskirts of San Antonio, which had been captured by Texas insurgents the previous December.
There were only 155 men in the San Antonio garrison under the command of Col. William Barrett Travis. All of the men withdrew to the Alamo.
Santa Ana deployed his troops around the structure and, when his artillery arrived, launched an intensive assault.
The Texans, who were reinforced by 32 men on March 1, withstood the Mexicans until March 6, when the enemy succeeded in breaching the mission walls.
Travis and his chief aides, including the American frontiersmen Davy Crockett and James Bowie, and the remainder of the garrison perished in the savage hand to hand struggle that followed.
Of the 187 Texan defenders of the Alamo, only six survived the siege, and Santa Ana ordered them all killed.
At the subsequent Battle of San Jacinto, in which Santa Ana was defeated, the Texans' battle cry was: "Remember the Alamo!"
The first permanent European settlement was established in what is now San Antonio in 1718. The Spanish built a mission (San Antonio de Valero) and the presidio. Four other missions were soon constructed nearby and the community was officially laid out in 1731.
Mission San Antonio de Valero was converted into the fortress known as the Alamo in 1793.
The other San Antonio missions include San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, built in 1720; Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion; San Francisco de la Espada; and San Juan Capistrano, all founded in 1731.
After the American Civil War and the arrival of the railroad in 1877, San Antonio developed as a cattle market and distribution point for south central Texas.
The city prospered as a military center during World Wars I and II. Its population increased markedly from the 1940s, in part through the annexation of adjacent communities. The population in 1970 was 654,153 and in 1980 it was up to 786,023.
San Antonio is noted for its mixture of Spanish, Mexican and American cultures.
A favorite area is the Paseo del Rio, a walkway that borders the San Antonio River as it winds through the downtown district.