Episode 2 of 3

Polk Signs Admission Bill

When: December 29, 1845
Where: United States
Part of: Texas voters approve statehood constitution and Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state

President Polk signed the joint resolution admitting Texas as the 28th state on December 29, 1845, bypassing a territorial phase.

President Polk signed the legislation making the former Republic of Texas a state of the Union on December 29, 1845. This action accepted Texas as the 28th state, with Congress making it a U.S. state on the same day annexation took effect, thus bypassing a territorial phase.

Sources

Texas annexation Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-31
Republic of Texas Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-24

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.