Today we focused on Texas - the setting of the book, "Hank the Cowdog." Texas is the 3rd largest state in the U.S. and in 1845 Texas became a state. It was admitted to the U.S. as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. Nine years earlier, the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836. It applied for "annexation" (new vocabulary word) to the U.S. the same year, but was rejected by the Secretary of State. At the time, the majority of Texas' people wanted Texas to be a state, but it was a huge slave-holding region. This made it a very volatile (new vocabulary word) political climate. Texans wished to avoid a war with Mexico. With Texas's economic fortunes declining by the early 1840s, the President of the Texas Republic, Sam Houston, arranged talks with Mexico to explore the possibility of securing official recognition of independence, with the United Kingdom mediating (new vocabulary word.) When Texas formally joined the U.S. on February 19, 1846, relations between the U.S. and Mexico deteriorated because of an unresolved dispute over the border between Texas and Mexico, and the Mexican–American War broke out only a few months later.