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9/11/2014: Any adult alive on September 11, 2001 probably remembers where they were when the Twin Towers fell. New York City may seem very far away from North Dakota. But North Dakotans were directly affected by the event.

9/15/2014: North Dakota established the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award in 1961. The award recognizes North Dakotans who have achieved national recognition. The Governor consults with the Secretary of State and the director of the State Historical Society to choose the recipients. Forty North Dakotans have received the award. Their portraits are displayed in the lower level of the Capitol.

9/24/2014: Harold Keith Johnson was born in Bowesmont, North Dakota on February 22, 1912. His life was one of service. He devoted himself to the Boy Scouts. Even as a general, he always kept a copy of the Boy Scout Handbook. He attended West Point, graduating in 1933. He was assigned to the 3rd infantry at Fort Snelling in Minnesota as a Second Lieutenant.

10/2/2014: North Dakota played an integral part in the Spanish American War. In 1898, President McKinley put out a call for volunteers. North Dakota experienced a surge of patriotism. In Fargo, Captain Keye asked Guard members willing to volunteer to take two steps forward. It was reported that every man responded. The volunteers did not know at the time that they would be gone for eighteen long months.

10/7/2014: In 1918, the Spanish flu was a global disaster. It is estimated that as many as a fifth of the world’s population was affected. North Dakota newspapers asserted that ordinary care should be enough to avoid the disease. As of the end of September, the Fargo Forum proudly announced that the Spanish flu had not yet hit Fargo. But the situation changed quickly. By October 4, Fargo reported one hundred cases.

10/8/2014: One hundred twenty-five years ago on this date it was a week after the vote on North Dakota's constitution. The votes were still being tallied, but newspaper headlines proclaimed a huge Republican victory and the passage of the Constitution.

10/9/2014: The post-Civil War era in America was a time of reform. In addition to movements dealing with suffrage, labor, and temperance, many “…idealistic reformers turned their attention to the plight of Indian people,” or more specifically, to Indian children. In 1879, Captain Richard Henry Pratt opened the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, the first assimilation school for Native Americans. For the next fifty years, assimilation persisted as the national policy for Indian education. Children were removed from their homes and placed into distant boarding schools where they were forced to give up native dress and beliefs – taught Christianity and white American values in their place.

10/15/2014: In 1862 the United States Congress approved an act that authorized land grant colleges. Through this system, grants of public lands were made to states and territories. The purpose was to create at least one college dedicated to agriculture in each state and territory.

10/27/2014: On this date in 1925, Warren Christopher was born in Scranton, North Dakota. He attended the University of Southern California, where he graduated magna cum laude. During World War II he served in the Navy. After the war, he graduated from Stanford Law School, and went on to serve as law clerk to Justice William O. Douglas. He later practiced with a law firm in California, and in 1958 became special counsel to Governor Pat Brown. In 1977, he was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of State, a position he held until 1981. He was instrumental in many delicate political negotiations including the Algiers Accords, relations with China, and ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. President Jimmy Carter awarded Christopher the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. He also received the Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official.

10/28/2014: War shapes a man; his ideas and values. This was no less true of Warren Christopher, the 63rd Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton.