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3/7/2006: Today is the birthday of Einar Olstad, who was born in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1878. He was just a year old when his parents, Hans and Ida, immigrated to America. They settled in Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, where Hans ran a blacksmith shop.

3/8/2006: Today would have been Amy Lybeck’s 90th birthday. She was born in 1916 to Justin and Olga Georgeson in Heimdal, and grew up with her eight siblings on her parents’ farm near Maddock.

3/10/2006: Yesterday we brought you the story of a bad-tempered Hidatsa chief, One-Eyed, who visited Lewis and Clark at Fort Mandan. Today we bring you a story of another chief, Sheheke, leader of the lower Mandan village, Matootonha.

3/12/2006: It was on this date in 1915 that the Hansboro News reported the following story from Wolford, northeast of Rugby:

3/13/2006: On this day in 1802, the first non-Native American child in what is now North Dakota was born. You’ll often hear this sort of event referred to as “the first white child born” in such-and-such a place, but that’s not the case here. The baby girl was born to Pierre Bonza and his wife, black slaves of Alexander Henry, Jr. The birth took place at Henry’s Pembina fur-trading post.

3/15/2006: Twenty-eight years ago today, the trial of Leonard Peltier was in its second day. Peltier, an Ojibwa-Lakota tribal member, was an activist involved in the American Indian Movement or AIM and, in 1972, took part in a 71-day standoff with FBI agents at Wounded Knee. Finally, officials promised to hold hearings on the tribe’s grievances, and the siege was ended. The hearings never took place.

3/17/2006: The origins of lutefisk go back ages and ages ago to the Vikings. As they sailed to unknown territories to maraud and plunder, they needed food. What Norway had in abundance was cod, so cod it was. They caught thousands of them and hung them on poles to dry in the wind. For the three weeks it took the fish to dry, it didn’t smell so good.

3/18/2006: Thomas D. Campbell was born in Grand Forks in 1882. Campbell’s parents were wheat farmers, and it was in this field that Campbell earned the title of Wheat King.

3/19/2006: On this date in 1915, the Bismarck Tribune noted a prediction that North Dakota’s population would reach one million within the next two years, based on research by the Commercial Club of Grand Forks. “(The) Club,” the story read, “finds that North Dakota now has an estimated population of 886,312. This is a gain of over 300,000 in the past five years.”

3/21/2006: “Let no man think we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealous agents of the Government arrest suspected ‘radicals’ without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail...we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity...” Those were the words of Republican Senator Robert La Follette, who was endorsed for President by North Dakota Republicans in 1916, almost 90 years ago.