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5/2/2012: England’s King Charles II made a wise decision on this date involving the new world that created the Hudson Bay Company. The monarch granted a royal charter to an initial group of investors allowing them to trade in the Hudson Bay drainage basin in present day Canada.

5/3/2012: In 1874 the Headquarters Hotel was the pride and joy of Fargo. Built two years earlier by the Northern Pacific Railroad, it was touted as one of the finest hotels in the northwest. But on the morning of September 22, a fire broke out in the kitchen. Proving to be too much for the hotel staff, the building was a total loss.

5/5/2012: Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms, and the United States has 75 percent of the world’s tornadoes. Although no state wishes to be included on a list of tornado-related statistics, violent weather has a way of making its way into the history books.

5/6/2012: Charles Sevrinson, long-time dean of students at NDSU, was born on this date in 1898 in Reynolds, North Dakota.

5/8/2012: On this day in 1957, newspapers across the country were reporting a prison riot at the State Penitentiary in Bismarck the previous day. The trouble started late in the morning, when 220 prisoners refused to go back to work in the binder-twine factory. The convicts complained of poor food, about the actions of a particularly hated guard, and inadequate time for recreation.

5/9/2012: Smokey Bear is the longest running public service campaign in the United States, with Smokey’s mission being to raise public awareness to prevent fires and protect our nation’s forests. But Smokey wasn’t the first “spokes animal” speaking out for fire safety.

5/11/2012: “Rugby vs. The World:” It was a match for the history books. And a future North Dakotan played a key role.

5/13/2012: Military forts on the Northern Plains were lonely outposts lacking in most of the comforts and culture of the Eastern cities.

5/14/2012: On this day, May 14, 2001, the Archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria, David Windibiziri, addressed the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church, north of Kenmare, ND. Although raised in the traditional religious beliefs of his home in Nigeria, Archbishop Windibiziri had as a teenager converted to Christianity and attended the Lutheran Seminary in St. Paul, MN before being ordained as a pastor in 1972.

5/23/2012: Fargo, Dakota Territory was chartered as an official city in 1875. The town named by the Northern Pacific Railroad offered its first school in 1872 when a cabin located in Island Park served a handful of students taught by a fifteen-year-old girl.