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9/1/2004: Next week, United Tribes Technical College presents its 35th International Powwow from the 9th through the 12th. UTTC is an intertribal, post-secondary vocational/technical school. It started in 1969 serving the education and training needs of American Indian students and their families. The school is synonymous with the annual powwow, one of the largest dance and singing competitions in the country.

9/5/2004: Former President Ulysses S. Grant laid the cornerstone for the Dakota Territory capitol at Bismarck on this date in 1883. Grant was on his way to Montana for the driving of the gold spike that marked the completion of the main line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Other dignitaries who attended the capitol cornerstone laying included railroad magnates James J. Hill of the Great Northern and President Henry Villard of the Northern Pacific; newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer; Generals H. H. Sibley and W. D. Washburn; Chief Sitting Bull; and Chicago merchant Marshall Field.

9/10/2004: President Woodrow Wilson visited North Dakota only one time – in 1919. The First World War had ended, and an armistice had been signed. Now, Wilson wanted to convince Congress and the Nation that the United States should accept the Treaty of Versailles and to become a member of the newly proposed League of Nations. He carried out his campaign by way of an 8,000-mile train trip, to the West Coast and back, so he could appeal directly to the people.

9/24/2004: Tomorrow is the 41st anniversary of President John Kennedy receiving an honorary degree from UND in Grand Forks. He was on a 5-day Soil Conservation Tour at the time.

9/26/2004: North Dakota has the largest continuous single-track trail in the country. The Maah-Daah-Hey Trail is a rugged 100-mile mountain bike trail that stretches from a Forest Service campground 20 miles south of Watford City, which extends south to Sully Creek State Park south of Medora. The trail, which is also used by hikers and horseback riders, has four fenced overnight campsites with hitching posts, vault toilets and campfire rings.

10/7/2004: It was eight years ago today that a journalism legend died in New York. He was Edward K. Thompson, who was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award in 1968.

10/11/2004: Many consider the USS WAHOO the most famous American submarine of World War II. Her third patrol, off the coast of New Guinea, turned the tide of the Pacific submarine war.

10/22/2004: “Were it not for the prairie church, the vast North Dakota landscape would stretch unbroken to the horizon. Often founded by first-generation settlers from Germany, Poland, Iceland, Russia and Scandinavia, the simple prairie church was usually the first building to go up when a town was settled – and the last to close its doors if the community died out. But now many of these buildings are threatened. Of North Dakota’s 2,000 church structures, more than 400 are vacant and threatened by inadequate maintenance and demolition.”

10/27/2004: For the past two days, we’ve talked about the South Pacific battle of Guadalcanal. The 164th Infantry (North Dakota National Guard) was sent there in October 1942 to reinforce the Marines during America’s first offensive action against the enemy in WWII. When the 164th arrived on October 13th, the Marines were holding a critical airstrip called Henderson Field.

11/21/2004: On this date in 1889, the North Dakota State Legislature elected Gilbert Pierce and Lyman Casey as North Dakota’s first U.S. Senators. The McKenzie political gang was in power on one side, and on the other was the Farmer’s Alliance, whose slogan was “The Farmers Must Rule North Dakota.”