Tessa Sandstrom

5/10/2007: Men generally aren’t commended for trying to sneak a peak up a woman’s skirt, but one North Dakotan helped in a historic capture by doing so. That North Dakotan’s name was Arne Ranum, a young Norwegian man and Civil War soldier.

5/3/2007: In May 1904, Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the coveted Pulitzer Prize, wrote: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve [the] public virtue…The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations."

4/5/2007: John Stupard was a ranch hand in the lower knife area of Mountrail County. But John, the Canadian transient, was a very uneasy ranch hand. Europe was entangled in the Great War and John did not want to be involved. The United States had remained neutral through much of it, but this day in 1917 would be the last day of official peace in America, and John Stupard would soon have more reason to be worried.

3/29/2007: Rolf Harmsen was deaf, so he couldn’t hear the gun, the hard breathing or the pounding steps of his competition on the track. But, the Hazen native was also quick, so chances are he wouldn’t have heard them anyway as he strode far ahead of his competition, despite his disability. Unlike the other boys who reacted to the sound of the gun, Rolf had to wait for his competitors to move.

3/10/2007: Today was another Saturday for legislators in 1951, and no doubt it was a day of much needed rest after a full week of decision-making.

2/13/2007: This day in 1926 started out with much excitement for the sisters of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson. An expansion had just been completed, and upon the sisters’ inspection, especially of the woodwork in the new chapel, the new addition was deemed satisfactory.

12/31/2006: It’s New Year’s Eve, and everyone is preparing to usher in the New Year. Today, most people probably celebrate at a friend’s party or a local bar, but for those in the early 1920s, the place to be was the Patterson Hotel in Bismarck.

12/26/2006: Those dreaming of a white Christmas got more than they bargained for on this day in 1916. The Bismarck Tribune reported some snowfall in Los Angeles, but it was the northern states that received the brunt of white Christmas wishes. In what was considered at the time the worst storm in 48 years, western North Dakota was bombarded with 20 inches of snow and 36 mile an hour wind gusts.

12/22/2006: A union that would go down in history was forged on this day in 1944, in what Farmers Union president James Patton called a “shameless, loveless shotgun wedding.”

12/8/2006: Little did he know as he enlisted in the Army Air Corps today in 1942, Jim Tronson was about to become a friend of fate. Despite what seemed like unfortunate circumstances, destiny would bring Jim from an ill-fated 13th mission, to friends in France, and back to his crew several years later.