A 10-minute history lesson

In a recent Hungry Horse News column, Gladys Shay used a phrase, “Not living in the past, but remembering the past.” I’m with her because revisiting history adds depth and breadth to one’s existence. I cannot resist playing history teacher. Today we will review events following Montana’s statehood, 124 years ago:

1890 — Wyoming was admitted to the union with the understanding it could have women’s suffrage. Dec. 15, Sitting Bull was murdered by Lt. Bull Head and Sgt. Red Tomahawk with Indian police who came to arrest the Sioux chief. This was also the year of the Wounded Knee massacre on Dec. 29. The 7th Regiment of the U.S. Cavalry killed or wounded over half the men, women and children among 350 Sioux being held prisoners.

1892 — In September, the first heavyweight championship was fought with padded gloves, ending the bare-knuckle days. James J. Corbett knocked out John L. Sullivan in the 21st round.

1893 — In April, Henry Ford successfully road-tested his first automobile. Twenty thousand members of Coxey’s Army began marching to Washington, D.C., to protest unemployment, but only 600 made it. Coxey was arrested for walking on the grass and never got to make his speech. These years saw the most violent strikes against big businesses, as America’s growing labor unions tested their muscles.

1895 — Theodore Roosevelt was promoting a war to get the Spanish out of Central America. Gold was discovered in Klondike Creek on the Yukon, and 30,000 miners rushed to Alaska to “make their fortune.”

1898 — The U.S. annexed Hawaii as a naval station to “block foreign invasion.” On Feb. 15, the U.S. battleship Maine blew up and sank in the harbor at Havana, Cuba. Under Sec. of the Navy Teddy Roosevelt ordered Admiral Dewey to take the Philippines, and he charged up San Juan Hill. Spain signed a peace treaty in November giving Cuba its freedom and giving the U.S. Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

1901 — On Sept. 6, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers ran vicious attacks on the dead president, leading to many of his newspapers being burned and Hearst hanged in effigy. On Sept. 14, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president and one of the most active chief administrators in the nation’s history.

1904 — A woman was arrested in New York for smoking a cigarette while riding down Fifth Avenue in an open car.

1905 — The New York Supreme Court threw out a law restricting bakery employees from working more than 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week.

1907 — In his annual message to Congress, President T.R. said, “We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country, the coal, iron, gas and the like, does not reproduce itself, and therefore is certain to be exhausted.”

1909 — Henry Ford put the working man behind the steering wheel by introducing the Model T. The first models cost $850, but by using standardization of parts and assembly lines, Ford got the prices down to $290 by 1924.

1910 — In May, President Taft opened 700,000 acres to homesteading in Washington, Montana and Idaho. The U.S. invaded Nicaragua on Nov. 18 after word came that their dictator had murdered 500 rebels. The adoption of the federal Mann Act put a big crimp in one of America’s fastest growing industries. “White slavers” were paying from $200 up to $2,000 for “prime specimens” of females to be shipped across state lines or into the U.S. for use in brothels. The largest red light district was in New Orleans, where an annual guidebook was published for the convenience of male shoppers. After the Mann Act, 30 of the largest cities closed red light districts; however, thousands of “houses” continued business using local talent and being very careful of how they got “new girls.”

1911 — A private citizen, Edward Hines, hand painted white lines on River Road near his home in Trenton, Mich., to indicate traffic lanes. That started something which may never end.

Today’s class is now excused.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.