MYTH: That Texans were the good guys and Mexicans the bad guys

FACT: The Mexicans were fighting to defend their country and to hold it intact. While Texans were fighting for certain freedoms and a more liberal judicial system. One of the freedoms they were seeking was the right to own slaves.

MYTH: There were no survivors of the Alamo.

FACT: As many as 17 people who did not take part in the fighting survived the battle, including Susannah Dickenson, her daughter, a black slave and about 14 pro-Texan Hispanics. Other accounts of survivors among the fighting men also have surfaced although these are in dispute.

MYTH: Davy Crockett died fighting, swinging his rifle, "Old Betsy," with a heap of dead Mexican soldiers at his feet.

FACT: There are varying accounts of what happened, including several that say he was captured along with six other Alamo defenders and executed.

MYTH: That William Travis drew a line across the courtyard and told those willing to stay to step across the line. Jim Bowie, taken ill, asked that his cot be carried across the line to signal his willingness to stay.

FACT: This story didn't surface until 1873, when William Zuber claimed to have heard it from Louis Rose, the one who is supposed to have refused to cross the line. But there is no other record to support the story.

MYTH: The Texas Lone Star flag flew over the Alamo during the 13-day siege.

FACT: It did not, although debate continues over which flag did fly over the mission-fortress. Earlier accounts had the defenders flying the flag of the Louisiana Greys while others claimed it was a Mexican flag bearing the date 1824, the year Mexico passed a liberal constitution favorable to Texans. Most historians now believe the most likely flag used at the Alamo was the tricolor Tejas y Coahuila flag.

MYTH: The ashes of the Alamo defenders reside in a marble coffin in the San Fernando Cathedral.

FACT: When Juan N. Seguin returned to San Antonio in February of 1837, he collected what ashes remained into a single coffin. After a brief religious service at the San Fernando Cathedral, the ashes were taken back and interred on the spot where they were found. The stones that marked the spot are gone and the exact location of the grave is now lost.