April 10, 1796 - James Bowie
Best remembered as a folk hero of the Texas frontier, Bowie's actual record includes land fraud schemes and an active role in the illegal slave trade — dimensions of his biography that his martyrdom at the Alamo long overshadowed. His death in the 1836 siege helped cement a legend that proved more durable than the man's more complicated history.
From Wikipedia
James Bowie ( BOO-ee) (April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836) was an American military officer, landowner and slave trader who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. Bowie was among the Americans who died at the Battle of the Alamo. Stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history and a folk hero of American culture.
Born in Logan County, Kentucky, Bowie spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he was raised and where he later worked as a land speculator. His rise to fame began in 1827 on reports of the Sandbar Fight near present-day Vidalia, Louisiana. What started as a duel between two other men deteriorated into a mêlée in which Bowie, having been shot and stabbed, killed the sheriff of Rapides Parish with a large knife. This, and other stories of Bowie's prowess with a knife, led to the widespread popularity of the Bowie knife.
Bowie enlarged his reputation during the Texas Revolution.
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