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4/13/2011: Keeping track of your children once they leave home was not so easy back in the 1940s, but when interviewed by a newspaper reporter on this date in 1948, a seventy-year-old Bismarck barber explained why he found it easier than most parents. Whenever Joseph Murphy wanted to know where his three boys were, he simply turned on the radio.

4/19/2011: If you listened to Dakota Datebook yesterday, you heard of the controversy around Sitting Bull’s life and death – turmoil that lasted long after the great man took his final breath in December of 1890. And there is still controversy today.

4/21/2011: It’s springtime in the Red River Valley of the North. It’s a time when nervous crowds congregate on the riverbank to stare anxiously at the dark and sullen river. The muddy water forms eddies and swirls that quickly disappear as the river laboriously carries away the runoff of the melting snows that had formed a glacial-like carpet across the valley floor.

4/22/2011: World War I transformed airplanes from a novelty into a deadly weapon. Pilots served as aerial scouts at first and then challenged enemy planes in airborne combat, in “dogfights” between fighter planes; and later in bombing runs against cities and troop positions.

4/28/2011: In 1922, a general awakening was taking place about the rich heritage of our relatively young state with the formation of a North Dakota Historical Association. On this date, the board of directors for the State Historical Society announced a chairman for each county.

5/10/2011: From an economical standpoint for farmers and farm laborers, World War II was either a blessing or a curse. Wartime could mean increased crop production to supply food for troops and other countries, but help was also scarce, with so many men and women away, serving their country. For a farming community where families thrived or starved by the crops, this was a big deal.

5/26/2011: On this date in 1935, last-minute preparations were underway for the premiere of a project that had been several months in the making – an actual movie, with local ties. Everyone who appeared in the film was either a local student or a faculty member from Dickinson Normal School.

5/27/2011: Water is one of the basics of life, along with oxygen and food. Today, we trust that the cold water from our faucets is safe to drink, but it wasn’t always this way.

6/24/2011: The first Grand Lodge officers of Dakota Territory were elected and installed on this date in 1875, creating Dakota Territory’s own Grand Lodge of Freemasons.

6/25/2011: Mark Kellogg was killed on this date in 1876 at the battle of the Little Bighorn. Working as a reporter, Kellogg became the first Associated Press correspondent to die in battle.