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2/21/2013: Granville, North Dakota, recorded an 83-degree rise in temperature on this date in 1918, one of the most extreme temperature changes ever recorded. In only twelve hours, the temperature climbed from 33-degrees Fahrenheit below zero to 50-degrees above. The 83-degree swing was only one example of extreme temperature changes caused by a meteorological phenomenon known as ‘Chinook winds.’

2/24/2013: What did American author Sinclair Lewis have in common with many other North Dakotans?

3/6/2013: The State Legislature passed a law on this date in 1891 that would require the teaching of Scandinavian languages at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Although less than 8% of the student population was of Norwegian descent, the state’s Norwegian minority began clamoring for the bill as early as 1884, calling for the hiring of a Norwegian professor “of their own race,” as they put it. After seven years of campaigning, they found victory in the hiring of a Norwegian professor, the Reverend George Rygh.

3/7/2013: In the time of the “Great Dakota Boom,” from 1878 through 1886, a flood of settlers flowed into the area that became North Dakota. The population grew by over 1,000 percent, from about 16,000 to 191,000 people.

3/10/2013: Wolford, North Dakota, was originally settled as the town of Orkney. The name was changed to Wolford in 1905, but Wolford's identity confusion didn't stop there. After Watford was settled in 1913, Great Northern Railroad shipments were often misrouted because "Watford" and "Wolford" looked similar on handwritten forms.

3/11/2013: 1943 proved a tough tax season for the Fargo Tax Division of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Division workers headquartered on the second floor of the Fargo Federal Building began processing as many as 20,000 claims a day on this date in 1943, in anticipation of the looming March 15th deadline. With the passage of new tax legislation, more Americans were filing income taxes than ever before.

3/13/2013: The finishing touches were being put onto the brand-new Fargo Theater on this date in 1926, only days before its much anticipated opening. Isaac Ruben, co-owner of Finkelstein and Ruben Theatres Company, arrived in town to direct last-minute installations.

4/26/2013: The plight of homeless people has always brought three reactions – compassion, indifference, or condemnation. Homeless people have been called many names in the past – hoboes, tramps, transients, bums, or vagabonds. Today’s Datebook tells about a supposedly-compassionate response to tramps in Fargo as described in The Casseltonian newspaper, of Casselton, on this date in 1895.

4/27/2013: One of the most horrific mass murders in North Dakota’s history occurred in April of 1920, at the farmstead of Jacob Wolf near Turtle Lake. Wolf, his wife, five children, and a 13-year-old farmhand were brutally murdered with a hatchet and shotgun.

5/8/2013: It was at noon on May 7th, 1912 that Dr. O. B. Griffith placed a long-distance phone call from Jamestown’s Gladstone Hotel. The key to getting it right was to have a clear phone connection, and using a company called Independent Telephone, Griffith was assured his voice would travel over a line made entirely of copper. Without this, he said, his mission could not be accomplished.