Shane Stromsodt was born in Grand Forks in 1959. At four months, he was inoculated for diphtheria, whooping cough, polio and tetanus with a brand new product called Quadrigen, manufactured by Parke-Davis.

On this date in 1905, North Dakotans learned that a well-known figure had passed away. The Hope Pioneer reported that Chief Rain in the Face had died at the Standing Rock Agency where he spent his final years. The Sioux Chief had been a prominent figure at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, or Greasy Grass.

On this date in 1951, a city law was proposed in Minot that created a stir: It would restrict city employees from having a second job.

On this date in 1921, the front page of the second section of the Fargo Forum's Saturday evening edition led with the article headlined, “Arikara Indians Stage Ancient Ceremonial at Fort Berthold."

During World War II, the American public paid exceptional attention to the needs of their local community as well as the needs of the troops. One of the frequent citizen-led activities were drives for needed items during the long, weary days and years of the war. Virtually every newspaper in the country kept people apprised of those needs.

Visits of sitting presidents to North Dakota have been few and far between, but one of the most memorable was of President George Bush Sr. planting an elm outside the state Capitol to commemorate North Dakota’s centennial in 1989.

The 1950s are remembered fondly by most US history textbooks. Known as the Eisenhower era, the postwar years were considered a new height of prosperity, with median family purchasing power increasing as much as 30%. Unfortunately, that prosperity was not universally shared. While many Americans were celebrating the end of World War II, indigenous people on the Fort Berthold reservation were being forced into a settlement agreement over losses they would suffer due to the Garrison Dam. After this settlement they experienced an economic decline aggravated by drought, poor relationships with the surrounding governments, and their decreasing ownership of the land.

In 1889, Louis Peterson opened the Pacific Hotel in Bismarck. He named it in honor of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Only three years later, Peterson died.Henry Tatley acquired the hotel when he married Peterson’s widow in 1897. The original hotel was a wooden building, but in 1906, Tatley added a brick structure at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway at a cost of $60,000, the equivalent of nearly two million dollars today.

I recently read a study about the Dakota skipper. The Dakota skipper is a small butterfly, with a wingspan of around one inch. Coloration is variable between the sexes with the upper wing surface of males a towny-orange to brown while females are a darker brown and spotted. The underside of males is dusty yellow-orange and females gray-brown with spots.

Ask anyone old enough to remember the polio years, and they will probably recall waiting in line to take a vaccine on a sugar cube. Dr. Jonas Salk gets a lot of credit for developing a vaccine to defeat polio, but this oral vaccine came out years afterward, developed by his rival, Dr. Albert Sabin.