Catching the thieves who stole his boat is one of the most storied adventures of Theodore Roosevelt during his time in the Badlands. The future president and his two ranch hands faced frigid cold, icy water and dwindling supplies to subdue the three thieves on the Little Missouri River. He marched them south to Dickinson for justice.

Following the August 1974 tsunami of attention over Richard Nixon’s resignation and Gerald Ford becoming the new President, local citizens were adjusting to a new political climate.

In 1936, in the midst of the "dirty thirties," August was just one in a long line of drought-stricken months. North and South Dakota were the only states that had designated all of their counties as emergency drought areas. From Stark County alone, 236 emergency grant applications had been made to the Federal Resettlement Administration.

President Theodore Roosevelt’s time in what is now North Dakota is known for the hunting and ranching that helped soothe his soul and form his outlook on conservation. There are many famous episodes: his persistent pursuit of his first bison, chasing boat thieves down the Little Missouri River, and giving his Fourth of July speech in Dickinson.

On this date in 1916, it was announced that North Dakota would help supply the dining cars of the Northern Pacific Railroad. A Montpelier farmer secured a contract to provide cucumbers and muskmelons. North Dakota would also supply snapping turtles! One thousand pounds of turtles had shipped from Jamestown.

In 1889, who could vote and how they could vote became a keen part of the debates during North Dakota's Constitutional Convention. A. S. Parsons of Mandan headed the standing committee on elective franchise that examined voting rules. Regarding women's suffrage, newspapers noted that this chairman was “unfriendly to the scheme in any shape or form.” Consequently, full enfranchisement was not awarded to women in the constitution, but they were granted the right to vote for school officials, a

A stunned American nation learned this week in 1974 that President Richard Nixon had chosen to resign the office of President of the United States of America. In doing so, Nixon was the first chief executive in the nation’s history to step down.

On this date in 1945, the United States detonated a nuclear bomb above the Japanese town of Hiroshima. This along with one dropped on Nagasaki three days later resulted in the unconditional surrender of the Japanese on August 15th.

In the mid 19th century amateur footraces became popular and were held on cinder and dirt roads with estimated distances. It was common entertainment to gamble on these races, but unfortunately they were very easy to fix. “Under the table” deals would be made with the runners. Athletes would get a cut of the swindler’s profit when they purposefully lost, and the trusting spectators were conned, or “grifted.” Later gangs of grifters would make a living staging all kinds of sporting events, from

The U.S. census is conducted every ten years, in every year ending in zero. But demographers are always gathering data on residence and migration. A similar effort was just beginning more than a century ago in Bismarck. A committee was organizing a religious census of North Dakota’s capital city on this date in 1912.