Carole Butcher

The road to the vote was a long one for North Dakota women. In 1883, they gained the right to vote in school elections. In 1885, state legislators laughed when J.A. Pickler introduced a bill granting universal suffrage to women. The measure passed, but Dakota Territory Governor Gilbert Pierce, claiming women didn’t want the vote, refused to sign it.

A shocking scandal involving P.M. Mattson of New Rockford broke on this date in 1900. Mattson, the state's attorney of Eddy County, faced sensational charges. Attorney E.C. Greene was in New Rockford to investigate allegations that Mattson had charged gamblers and blind piggers for protection. The charges were so serious that the state was considering initiating impeachment proceedings against him.

In the days when the Wild West was still wild, organized gangs roamed the frontier, holding up trains and stagecoaches, and targeting banks. One of the earliest documented bank robberies occurred in 1866, when Frank and Jesse James robbed the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, escaping with sixty thousand dollars. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid led the Wild Bunch into the early 1900s. While they primarily robbed trains, the Wild Bunch was also responsible for several bank robberies, including one in which they took over $32,000.

Mail delivery was a sporadic and unreliable system in the eighteenth century, both irregular and limited. The United States did not have a government postal service until 1847. Transatlantic service became more reliable with the advent of steamships, which were more dependable than sailing ships, but it took time to develop a truly reliable system.

The Twentieth Century was a time of rapid change. Americans were beginning to take to the roads in their automobiles, and daring young men and women were taking to the skies in their flying machines. Advances like the phonograph came fast and furious, and talking motion pictures and the radio were just around the corner. But some people had a difficult time adjusting to the fast pace of societal changes.

Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, when the country was enjoying the booming economy of the Roaring Twenties. It wouldn't last long. The stock market crashed just a year later, and a full-scale economic depression set in.

Canada entered World War I on August 4, 1914, when the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. Canada showed solidarity to the United Kingdom by also declaring war.

Decades of interaction with white Americans reshaped Native culture as they adapted to horses, guns, and trade goods. Eventually, the free-ranging lifestyle of Native peoples was permanently altered as they were forced onto reservations.

On July 5, 1902, William Ross traveled to a farm near Willow City and broke into the home of Thomas Walsh. There, he committed what newspapers called one of the most cold-blooded murders ever committed in Bottineau County. He shot Walsh while the elderly man was asleep, then stole three horses and a wagon before fleeing south.

The process to ratify a constitutional amendment is complicated and time-consuming. The Archivist of the United States, who heads the National Archives and Records Administration, oversees the procedure. Congress can propose an amendment by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. Alternatively, two-thirds of the states can call for a constitutional convention, though no amendment has ever been proposed in that manner. Once an amendment passes Congress, it must be approved by three-fourths of the states.