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2/24/2014: It read, “An act to provide for the division of the territory of Dakota into two states and to enable the people of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form constitutions and state governments and to be admitted to the union on an equal footing with the original states.” This phrase may not sound too exciting, but to the people of Dakota Territory, Section One of the Omnibus Bill was sheer poetry on this date in 1889. The wait was finally over.

2/25/2014: If you look at an old-enough photograph of the main blocks of any town in North Dakota, you will notice a common thread – the roads were not paved.

2/26/2014: On this date in 1909, the Tagus Weekly reported on a new bill that had become law: a hotel inspection bill. Travelers today can easily find reviews of various hotels on Twitter, Facebook and websites. Even the ancient Romans had hotel reviews – they would scrawl a running commentary of life on their cities' walls, including comments on businesses and inns. For example, a graffiti found in Pompeii shared, "When ham is cooked and served to a guest here, before he touches the ham he licks the pot or the dish."

3/3/2014: Voting is a private matter, done in secret. The secret ballot method came to North Dakota in 1891. On this date that year, the Grand Forks Herald reported that the State Senate approved the “Australian election bill” in order to clean up elections. The new voting system mandated that county governments print official ballots, at public expense, with all the names of all candidates of all political parties printed on each ballot. Voters would then mark their ballots with cross-mark X’s – in secret, in a polling booth, behind a curtain.

3/11/2014: During the winter of 1920-21, about fifty cases of smallpox were reported and treated in the city of Bismarck. Most of them were mild, and many patients came from outside of the city, according to a report in the Bismarck Tribune. In fact, it was reported that Dr. C. E. Stackhouse, the city health officer, felt that smallpox had "about run its course" for the winter.

3/20/2014: The 18th Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Dakota ended on March 8th 1889. The relationship between Governor Louis Church and the Legislature, and even with the people of Dakota Territory in general, had been filled with hostility.

4/3/2014: Lightning rods provide real protection against lightning strikes on houses, but it seems that modern homeowners don’t care to use them anymore. But there was a time when most barns and farmhouses had lightning rods installed upon the rooftops – each with a sharp point reaching skyward, often with a distinctive glass ball on the shaft. The glass ball was supposed to break if a lightning bolt hit the rod.

4/15/2014: On this date in 1889, as stipulated in the Omnibus Bill, Governor A. C Mellette issued a proclamation that an election shall take place on May 14th for the selection of delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

4/24/2014: In 1889, spring promised another wave of homesteaders, but it had been a dry winter, and a lack of spring rain brought the threat of prairie fires. The fires began in the southern part of the territory – huge conflagrations that burned everything in their paths including hay fields, farms and entire communities.

4/25/2014: Harry O'Brien and his wife Rosamond Thoe were born and raised in Devils Lake, the children of early North Dakota settlers. Harry attended the Agricultural College in Fargo until World War I intervened. He served with the American Expeditionary Force in France for about two years. Afterward, in the early 1920s, Harry and Rosamond married.