Getting the flavor of...

The birthplace of Texas independence

Gonzales, Texas, never forgets its explosive history, said Jordan Breal in Texas Monthly. The site of the first battle in the Texas Revolution, this small town at the confluence of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers has built a small tourism industry around a single 2-foot-long cannon. The cannon, which some consider authentic, sits proudly inside the Gonzales Memorial Museum, where visitors can read about how 18 local men once held off Mexican army troops who’d marched into town demanding the weapon. The underdogs’ flag debuted a motto—“Come and Take It”—that’s since become an unofficial state motto. The conflict’s first shot was fired on Oct. 2, 1835, seven miles away in today’s Cost, where the site is pinpointed by a humble marker. In downtown Gonzales, the oldest attractions date from the 1840s, because the early Gonzales was burned to the ground, a victim of the war it started.

Ron Burgundy’s gifts to journalism

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The latest exhibition to open at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., is, as its muse has said of himself, “kind of a big deal,” said Christine Haughney in The New York Times. Inspired by the 2004 Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman, the show puts an array of props from the movie on display, and uses that pop draw to give visitors a glimpse into real-life sexism and racism in 1970s TV newsrooms. It’s “one of the unlikeliest exhibitions” you’ll see this year in a serious museum and comes just weeks before Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy returns to the big screen in Anchorman 2. Props from that sequel will then join current highlights, including Burgundy’s news set, his maroon suit, his mustache brush, and a bottle of Sex Panther cologne. Nearby, an eight-minute film features Maury Povich, Connie Chung, and other news personalities reminiscing about ’70s newsrooms, including the gender-based hazing and rampant use of hair spray.