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11/2/2004: Today is the birthday of Matt Cullen, an NHL hockey player who has played for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the Florida Panthers and now with the Carolina Hurricanes.

11/15/2004: The village of Sibley, on Lake Ashtabula, was formed in 1954, the same year that Karnak, named for an Egyptian king, closed its post office. They had in common the Ladbury Church. This church building was the first built in the town of Kensal, in 1899. When it closed in 1926, a rural congregation near Karnak bought it and pulled it 25 miles east with a steam-driven tractor. One boy made the trip by riding inside the building. Originally lit with kerosene lights, it had recently been wired for three electric bulbs, but electricity wouldn’t reach “rural” ND for another 25 years. So, the light bulbs were cut off, and the wires were used to hang kerosene lanterns, again.

11/17/2004: Today we’re talking about a man whose chronic insomnia was first his curse and then his blessing. Emil Krauth was born around 1872 in the German village of Eberbach. As a child, he became fascinated with the stone entrance to a local cemetery. Carved into the stone were butterflies, which, his pastor explained, represented the Resurrection of Christ; the butterfly begins as a caterpillar that retreats into a cocoon and then emerges beautifully transformed.

11/20/2004: On the night of November 20, 1942, the North Dakota 164th Infantry took up positions under cover of darkness on the island of Guadalcanal, where they had been in action for almost a month. The following morning, they were instructed to cross a deep ravine and attack the Japanese who were embedded on the opposite ledge.

11/25/2004: As it does this year, Thanksgiving Day also fell on November 25th in 1931. Around the state that year, there was good news, and there was bad news.

11/30/2004: The Dakota Territory Indian Wars primarily ended when Sitting Bull surrendered his people at Ft. Buford in 1875. Tribes were confined to reservations with poor land where wild game had been hunted to near extinction. The government promised them rations and supplies, but graft and corruption was so rampant in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that if these items actually made it to the reservations, they were poor-quality leftovers.

12/3/2004: On this day in 1973, Shirley Plume was appointed Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency Supt. for the Standing Rock Reservation of North and South Dakota. It was a major milestone.

12/6/2004: Yesterday was the 110th anniversary of the death of a Lakota man, Chief Gall; Sitting Bull relied on him for their war maneuvers, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Dr. Charles Eastman, a Wahpeton Sioux physician, historian and author, wrote, “Gall was considered by both Indians and whites to be a most impressive type of physical manhood.” Gall was also legendary for his aggression and fearlessness – traits that showed up early, before his parents died.

12/8/2004: On this date in 1966, The North Dakota Board of Higher Education accepted title to the KTHI-TV tower from the Pembina Broadcasting Co. The move put the gigantic tower into the hands of the state, gave Pembina Broadcasting a tax break, and allowed UND and NDSU to add a powerful antenna for broadcasting educational television programming.

12/9/2004: Yesterday, we talked about the KTHI transmission tower – now used by KVLY – near Blanchard. It was built in 1963 and holds the record of being the tallest man-made, land-based structure in the world.