Jacob Darst of Montgomery County, Mo., fires the opening volley of the Texas War for Independence. His cannon contained scrap-metal shrapnel.

Based upon content from the book This Day In Missouri History by Ross Malone, author and Missouri historian. Get your copy.

Photo credit: Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. Originally an eighteenth-century Franciscan mission church in San Antonio, Texas, the Alamo was destined to become the “Shrine of Texas Liberty”. -04-15. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2015630266/.