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1/1/2012: North Dakota’s first full-time Lieutenant Governor took office on this date in 1982. Previously, lieutenant governors had been only part-time, acting as Presidents of the State Senate.

1/2/2012: A young North Dakota girl was honored in Illinois on this date in 1955 for saving the lives of her two sisters at the start of the New Year. Both her sisters and parents were grateful that the girl, 10-year-old Toni Hundley from Mohall, North Dakota, had a habit of being a night owl, especially when it came to New Year’s Eve.

1/4/2012: On this date in 1875, one of the most prolific of North Dakota pioneers was preparing to introduce a bill to incorporate the City of Fargo. On passage, the newest city in northern Dakota Territory, named for businessman and NP Railway director William Fargo, became the Gate City to the Northern Plains.

1/10/2012: On this date in 1923, North Dakota State Senators James McCoy and Lynn Sperry introduced a bill into the State Senate “…aimed at the Ku Klux Klan and prohibiting the wearing of a mask, regalia, or other head covering in public...” The bill, which became known as the ‘Anti-Mask Bill,’ was largely a response to Klan violence in southern states. News of the violence had created public outrage against the Klan, spurring North Dakota legislators to action. The senators hoped that by ‘de-masking’ Klan members, they would lose the anonymity that enabled them to commit such atrocious crimes.

1/11/2012: E. T. Rector, president of the Fairmont Creamery Company of Omaha, Nebraska, visited Fargo on this date in 1923 to announce the city’s selection as the headquarters of the creamery’s North Dakota operations.

1/12/2012: The brand-new year has ushered in unusual weather, with record-breaking high temperatures and little snow. However, residents here know the winter weather is rarely so pleasant. Take for example, the winter of 1896-1897, when “records for heavy snowfalls and cold weather were broken,” where “stories are told of houses so covered with snow that only chimneys were visible....”

1/16/2012: The United States Air Force set new climb-time records with the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Superior Fighter aircraft on this date in 1975. The records were set at the Grand Forks Air Force Base as part of Operation Streak Eagle.

1/17/2012: The Volstead Act took effect at midnight on this date in 1920, forbidding the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol into or within the United States. While the separate Eighteenth Amendment established prohibition in the U-S, the Volstead Act enabled its enforcement.

1/20/2012: North Dakotans elected Porter McCumber to the U.S. Senate on this date in 1899. An attorney from Wahpeton, McCumber had served in both the Dakota Territory House and Senate. After his election to the U-S Senate in 1899, he would go on to become one of the state’s best-known and longest-serving U-S Senators.

1/22/2012: J. A. Kitchen, North Dakota’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor, proposed a resolution to the State Legislature on this date in 1923.