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12/31/2003: Today begins a 3-part series on Eagle-Woman-That-All-Look-At. She was the daughter of Two Lance, chief of the Upper Yankton Nakota, who felt she was destined to gain some of the same respect and admiration the tribe had given him. Eagle Woman married Honore Picotte, a French fur trader at Fort Union. When he died, she married another trader, Major Charles Galpin, who called her Little Eagle. Other whites called her Matilda or Mrs. Galpin.

1/5/2004: Fargo had been bustling five years before it was officially incorporated on this day in 1875. When the railroad headed west, there was a flurry of speculation to determine where it would cross the Red River, because it was forecast that the crossing would be the site of the next large city.

1/8/2004: The United Nations declared 1975 International Women’s Year. The woman chosen for North Dakota’s special honors was Minnie Craig, and Sunday marks the anniversary of that ceremony.

1/9/2004: Think of North Dakota boxers, and you probably think Virgil Hill. But Hill is not the only great boxer to come out of the state. Back in the 1920s and 30s, there was a lightweight, Billy Petrolle (pet-TROLL-ay), who went by the name of the “Fargo Express.” He is ranked as one of the two greatest fighters to have never won a world championship.

1/12/2004: Today marks the anniversary of the death of Kate Richards, who died in 1948 at the age of 71. Also known as Red Kate, her brush with North Dakota made history.

1/17/2004: During the late 1800s, harsh weather and economic hardships caused a famine in Iceland, and many Icelanders migrated to Canada. Some of those ended up homesteading in northeastern Dakota Territory near the already settled area around Pembina.

1/20/2004: On this date in 1909, the North Dakota Legislature passed a bill to establish a Tuberculosis Sanatorium at San Haven. One of the people responsible for this was 29 year-old Dr. Fannie Dunn Quain. She was North Dakota’s first homegrown female doctor.

1/24/2004: Yesterday, our program celebrated women’s suffrage in North Dakota, so it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek to bring you today’s story: in 1953, state legislative Bill #773, proposed mandatory closing hours for beauty shops so that wives could be home in time to cook supper.

1/26/2004: Horace Greeley encouraged more than just young men to go west. “Young men! Poor men! Widows!” he said. “Resolve to have a home of your own! If you are able to buy and pay for one in the East, very well; if not, make one in the broad and fertile West!”

6/25/2004: Custer’s Last Stand was on this date in 1876; Native Americans call it the Battle of Greasy Grass.