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1/26/2013: The Grand Forks All-American Turkey show began on this date in 1931.

1/27/2013: President Richard Nixon signed a peace agreement ending the Vietnamese War on this date in 1973.

1/31/2013: George Armstrong Custer is most famous today for his personal waterloo – the battle of Little Big Horn, but his fame began long before his days in the Dakota Territory and the “Wild West.” He graduated from West Point—albeit last in his class—and took part in the Civil War, where he gained quite a reputation.

2/4/2013: As thousands of Model Ts rattled across the Dakotas in the 1910s, Henry Ford needed a way to keep those cars running and to get new cars to customers. Ford built additional factories in cities across the United States because it was cheaper to ship parts from Detroit and assemble the cars in these "branch houses" than to ship a complete Model T.

2/5/2013: One hundred years ago, Ralph Metcalf had a dream – to design an airplane that could take off and land from either land or water. Metcalf, a farmer and carpenter from Driscoll, which is located east of Bismarck in Burleigh County, built a small model aircraft with a radical design.

2/7/2013: Arthur Packard established the Bad Lands Cow Boy newspaper at Medora on this date in 1884. Medora’s first newspaper, the Cow Boy recorded the town’s earliest history.

2/11/2013: In biblical times, persons who had leprosy were shunned and had to call out “unclean!, unclean!” – to warn others away. In North Dakota, the most publicized cases of more modern leprosy were in Walsh County, near Edinburg.

2/13/2013: Almost one year after the end of World War I, in September of 1919, General Pershing led 24,000 “bronzed veterans and victors of battles that saved the world for liberty” through the streets of Washington D.C. in a grand victory parade. Citizens were invited to “make the greatest possible noise so that the fighters shall ever remember their final review as the greatest the nation could give anywhere.”

2/14/2013: A terrible fire destroyed the Krem Roller Mill on this date in 1906. Although little remains of the town today, Krem was once the “largest and most progressive” town in Mercer County. Much of the town’s commercial success, however, was the result of its large flour mill. Losing the mill was the beginning of the end for the North Dakotan prairie town.

2/18/2013: Last week, we heard the story about Dr. J.E. Engstad of Grand Forks, who stirred controversy by saying two lepers in Walsh County were being neglected by their neighbors, being left to die without human contact. Dr. Engstad, after making a medical visit, claimed Sakkarius Aardahl and John Ostland were suffering in a decomposing sod house 16 miles west of Edinburg that was like a “living tomb.”