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1/16/2017: Michael Vetter was a soldier in the 7th Cavalry stationed at Fort Totten. Today, we bring you excerpts of three letters he wrote to his brother in Pittsburgh in January of 1876, which were translated from German.

1/17/2017: On this date in 1907, the Wahpeton Times included an ad for Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, “the Great Woman’s Remedy for Woman’s Ills … sold by druggists everywhere.” The ad said that it had been curing all forms of female complaints for thirty years ... a polite way of addressing menstrual and menopausal discomfort.

Episode 39 features Washburn bluegrass band Cotton Wood; musician Faustina Masigat; and an interview with John Andrus, founder of the Bluegrass Association of North Dakota. Plus, Sara and Sean of Watkins Family Hour talk about the songwriting process behind their Brother Sister album.

8/10/2016: Along Highway 85 south of Watford City, you’ll find the entrance to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The signs are hard to miss, unlike the nearby rock memorial to a teenage boy who’s now remembered in local lore.

8/15/2016: In 1916, war was raging in Europe. Newspapers and magazines carried graphic accounts of the horrific events as they unfolded. Some of those publications promoted American isolationism, but another popular medium of the day encouraged military service. In the era before radio and television, perhaps the most striking communication device was the poster.

8/24/2016: In late summer of 1921, there was a great deal of contention surrounding North Dakota’s political situation. It was rumored that Governor Lynn Frazier was about to resign before a recall election could take place. On this date in ‘21, Frazier declared that the rumors were “an invention pure and simple.” He called such talk “a barefaced falsehood framed by that portion of the press which is corrupt….”

9/21/2016: The National Register of Historic Places honors buildings significant for architectural style or their connection with important people or events. In the town of McClusky, which is right-smack-dab in the middle of North Dakota, there’s the Sheridan County Courthouse. It gained listing on the National Register in 1985, along with several other Art Deco courthouses, as visible vestiges of 1930s New Deal construction projects.

9/30/2016: The word “gypsies” conjures forth thoughts of wanderers, nomads and vagabonds drifting along, stealthily moving along highways and byways, living by their wits, as coppersmiths, basket-weavers, and horse-traders.

10/7/2016: As Leon Frankel sat, strapped into a German fighter plane, he thought “What’s a nice Jewish boy from Minot, North Dakota doing here?”

10/11/2016: North Dakota’s winter of 1996-97 is largely remembered for Blizzard Hannah and the devastating Red River flood that evacuated Grand Forks. But the destructive season also had effects that stretched into the state’s hunting seasons.