October 12th

For the month of October, we will be highlighting key events in American history that have shaped our legal culture. It seems particularly fitting to “launch” by recalling that on this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus reached the New World (as the youthful chant echoes in our heads – “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…”). Columbus sailed from Spain and brought with him the first tastes of Spanish and European law, including civil law concepts and marital property laws that evolved into what we Texans know today as “community property.”