Let's visit the capital city of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The photos are: 1) downtown Indianapolis; 2) the Indianapolis Statehouse; 3) the Central Canal in Indianapolis; 4) the Indianapolis River Walk; 5) the Indiana War Memorial Plaza; 6) the Chase Tower (tallest skyscraper in Indiana; 7) the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; and 8) the Indianapolis Athenaeum (originally called "Das Deutsche Haus").

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. The United States Census estimates the city's population (excluding included towns) at 795,458. It is Indiana's largest city and is the 13th largest city in the U.S., the third largest city in the Midwest (behind Chicago and Detroit), and the second most populous state capital (behind Phoenix, Arizona).
For much of its history, Indianapolis oriented itself around government and industry, particularly manufacturing. Today, Indianapolis has a much more diversified economy, contributing to the fields of education, healthcare, and finance. Tourism is also a vital part of the economy of Indianapolis, and the city plays host to numerous conventions and sporting events. Of these, perhaps most well known is the annual Indianapolis 500 race. Other major sporting events include the Allstate 400 and the Men's and Women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments.
Greater Indianapolis has seen moderate growth among U.S. cities, especially in nearby Hamilton, Hendricks, and Johnson counties. The population of the combined statistical area is estimated at 2,014,267, making it the 23rd-largest CSA in the U.S.

Indianapolis was selected as the site of the new state capital in 1820. Jeremiah Sullivan, a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court, invented the name Indianapolis by joining Indiana with polis, the Greek word for city; literally, Indianapolis means "Indiana City". The city was founded on the White River under the incorrect assumption that the river would serve as a major transportation artery; however, the waterway was too sandy for trade. The capital moved from Corydon on January 10, 1825 and the state commissioned Alexander Ralston to design the new capital city. Ralston was an apprentice to the French architect Pierre L'Enfant, and he helped L'Enfant plan Washington, DC. Ralston's original plan for Indianapolis called for a city of only one square mile (3 km²). At the center of the city sat Governor's Circle, a large circular commons, which was to be the site of the governor's mansion. Meridian and Market Streets converge at the Circle and continue north and south and east and west, respectively. The governor's mansion was eventually demolished in 1857 and in its place stands a 284-foot (87 m) tall neoclassical limestone and bronze monument, the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. The surrounding street is now known as Monument Circle.
The city lies on the original east-west National Road. The first railroad to service Indianapolis, the Madison & Indianapolis, began operation on October 1, 1847, and subsequent railroad connections made expansive growth possible. Indianapolis was the home of the first Union Station, or common rail passenger terminal, in the United States. By the turn of the century, Indianapolis had become a large automobile manufacturer, rivaling the likes of Detroit. With roads leading out of the city in all directions, Indianapolis became a major hub of regional transport connecting to Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis, befitting the capital of a state whose motto is "The Crossroads of America." This same network of roads would allow quick and easy access to suburban areas in future years.
City population grew rapidly throughout the first half of the 20th century. While rapid suburbanization began to take place in the second half of the century, race relations deteriorated. Even so, on the night that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Indianapolis was the only major city in which rioting did not occur . Many credit the speech by Robert F. Kennedy, who was in town campaigning for President that night, for helping to calm the tensions. Racial tensions heightened in 1970 with the passage of Unigov, which further isolated the middle class from Indianapolis's growing African American community. Court-ordered school desegregation busing by Judge S. Hugh Dillon was also a controversial change.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Indianapolis suffered at the hands of urban decay and white flight. Major revitalization of the city's blighted areas, such as Fall Creek Place, and especially the downtown, began in the 1990s and led to an acceleration of growth on the fringes of the metropolitan Area. The opening of Circle Centre in downtown Indianapolis jumpstarted a major revitalization of the central business district.
Indianapolis's future appears bright as the city continues to invest heavily in improvement projects, such as an expansion to the Convention Center, upgrading of the I-465 beltway and an entirely new airport terminal for the Indianapolis International Airport, expected to open on November 11, 2008. Construction of the Indianapolis Colts' new home, Lucas Oil Stadium was completed in August 2008, and the proposed hotel and convention center expansion is expected to open within the next three years.

Today's Jumble (11/20/08):

NIGLY = LYING; TENIL = INLET; KERUBE = REBUKE; HIBEND = BEHIND

CIRCLED LETTERS = NGINEREUBND

The scouts gathered wood because they had a ---

"BURNING NEED"

Today is "Name Your PC Day." I don't have a name for mine so I'll have to think of one.

Today is also Mexican Revolution Day. (on this date, in the year 1910 the war to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Díaz, began).

Other things on this day in history:

284 - Diocletian was chosen as Roman Emperor.
762 - Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire.
1194 - Palermo is conquered by Emperor Henry VI.
1407 - A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
1695 - Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed.
1700 - Great Northern War: Battle of Narva - King Charles XII of Sweden defeats the army of Tsar Peter the Great at Narva.
1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
1861 - American Civil War: Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
1910 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosi, denouncing President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.
1917 - World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins - British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
1917 - Ukraine is declared a republic.
1923 - Rentenmark replaces the Papiermark as the official currency of Germany at the exchange rate of one Rentenmark to One Trillion (One Billion on the long scale) Papiermark
1936 - Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange is killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 - World War II: Hungary, Romania and Slovakia join the Axis Powers.
1943 - World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
1945 - Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
1947 - The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.
1952 - Slánský trials - a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1968 - Vietnam War: Eleven men comprising a Long Range Patrol team from F Company, 58th Infantry, 101st Airborne are surrounded and nearly wiped out by North Vietnamese army regulars from the 4th and 5th Regiment. The seven wounded survivors are rescued after several hours by an impromptu force made of other men from their unit.
1969 - Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
1974 - The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
1975 - Francisco Franco, Caudillo of Spain dies after 36 years in power.
1979 - Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages in the Kaaba. The Saudi government received help from French special forces to put down the uprising.
1984 - The SETI Institute is founded.
1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1989 - Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1992 - In England, a fire breaks out in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle, rages for 15 hours, and seriously damages the northwest side of the building (an investigation found that the fire was ignited after a spotlight came into contact with a curtain over an extended period).
1993 - Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1994 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war (localized fighting resumed the next year).
1998 - A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 - The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
2001 - In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 - After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.

We are going to visit Lansing, Michigan today.

The photos are: 1) a panoramic view of Lansing; 2) the Michigan State Capitol Building; 3) looking west on Michigan Avenue; 4) downtown Lansing viewed from the River Walk; 5) the North Lansing dam of the Grand River; 6) the former Oldsmobile Headquarters and the Otto Eckert Power Station: 7) Boji Tower (Lansing's tallest building); and 8) a snowy day in Lansing.

Lansing is the capital city of the U.S. state of Michigan, and the state's sixth largest city. It is located about 80 miles (125 km) west-northwest of Detroit and is mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. As of the 2000 census, it has a population of 119,128, an Urbanized Area (UA) population of 300,032, and, as of July 1, 2007, a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) population of 456,440. The even larger Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population, which includes Shiawassee County, is estimated at 528,193.
The Lansing metropolitan area, colloquially referred to as "Mid-Michigan," is an important center for educational, cultural, governmental, business, and high-tech manufacturing institutions, including three medical schools (two human medicine and one veterinary), two nursing schools, two law schools including the nation's largest law school, a Big Ten Conference university (Michigan State), the state capital, the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, a federal court, the Library of Michigan and Historical Center, and headquarters of four national insurance companies.
Lansing is the only U.S. state capital (among the 44 located in counties) that is not also a county seat. The county seat of Ingham County is Mason, but the county maintains some offices in Lansing.

The area that is now Lansing was originally surveyed in 1825 in what was then dense forest. There would be no roads to this area for decades to come.
In the winter of 1835 and early 1836, two brothers from New York plotted the area now known as REO Town just south of downtown Lansing and named it "Biddle City." All of this land lay in a floodplain and was underwater during the majority of the year. Regardless, the brothers went back to New York, specifically Lansing, New York, to sell plots for the town that did not exist. They told the residents of Lansing, New York that this new "city" had an area of 65 blocks, contained a church and also a public and academic square. A group of 16 men bought plots in the nonexistent city and upon reaching the area later that year found they had been scammed. Many in the group too disappointed to stay ended up settling around what is now Metropolitan Lansing. Those who stayed quickly renamed the area "Lansing Township" in honor of their home village in New York.
The sleepy settlement of fewer than 20 people would remain dormant until the winter of 1847 when the state constitution required that the capital be moved from Detroit to a more centralized and safer location in the interior of the state since many were concerned about Detroit's close proximity to British-controlled Canada, which had captured Detroit in the War of 1812. The United States had recaptured the city in 1813, but these events led to the dire need to have the center of government relocated away from hostile British territory. In addition, there was also concern with Detroit's strong influence over Michigan politics, being the largest city in the state as well as the capital city. During the multi-day session to determine a new location for the state capital, many cities, including Ann Arbor, Marshall, and Jackson, lobbied hard to win this designation. Unable to publicly reach a consensus due to constant political wrangling, the Michigan House of Representatives privately chose the Township of Lansing out of frustration. When announced, many present openly laughed that such an insignificant settlement was now the capital city of Michigan. Two months later, the governor William L. Greenly signed into law the act of the legislature officially making Lansing Township the state capital.

With the announcement that Lansing Township had been made the capital, the small village quickly transformed into the seat of state government. The legislature gave the settlement the temporary name of the "Town of Michigan." In April 1848, the legislature then gave the settlement the name of "Lansing." Within months after it became the capital city, individual settlements began to develop along three key points along the Grand River in the township.

"Lower Village/Town," where present-day Old Town stands, was the oldest of the three villages. It was home to the first house built in Lansing in 1843 by pioneer James Seymour and his family. Lower Town began to develop in 1847 with the completion of the Franklin Avenue (now Grand River Avenue) covered bridge over the Grand River.

"Upper Village/Town," where present-day REO Town stands at the confluence of the Grand River and the Red Cedar River. It began to take off in 1847 when the Main Street Bridge was constructed over the Grand River. This village's focal point was the Benton House, a 4-story hotel which opened in 1848. It was the first brick building in Lansing and was later razed in 1900.

"Middle Village/Town," where downtown Lansing now stands, was the last of the three villages to develop in 1848 with the completion of the Michigan Avenue bridge across the Grand River and the completion of the temporary capitol building which sat where Cooley Law School stands today on Capitol Avenue in between Allegan and Washtenaw Streets, and finally the relocation of the post office to the village in 1851. This area would grow to become larger than the other two villages up and down river. For a brief time the combined villages were referred to as "Michigan" but was officially named Lansing in 1848.

In 1859, the settlement having grown to nearly 3,000 and encompassing about 7 square miles (18 km2) in area was incorporated as a city. The boundaries of the original city were Douglas Avenue to the north, Wood and Regent Streets to the east, Mount Hope Avenue to the south, and Jenison Avenue to the west. These boundaries would remain unchanged until 1916. Lansing began to grow steadily over the next two decades with the completion of the railroads through the city, a plank road, and the completion of the current capitol building in 1878.
Most of what is known as Lansing today is the direct result of the city becoming an industrial powerhouse which began with the founding of Olds Motor Vehicle Company in August 1897. The company went through many changes, including a buyout, between its founding to 1905 when founder Ransom E. Olds started his new company REO Motor Car Company, which would last in Lansing for another 70 years. Olds would be joined by the less successful Clarkmobile around 1903. Over the next decades, the city would see itself transformed into a major American industrial center for the manufacturing of automobiles and automobile parts among other industries. The city continued to grow in area too. By 1956, the city had grown to 15 square miles (39 km2), and doubled in size over the next decade to its current size of roughly 33 square miles (85 km2).
Today, the city's economy is now diversified among government service, healthcare, manufacturing, insurance, banking, and education.

Today's Jumble (11/19/08):

PUTER = ERUPT; INGIC = ICING; TOORRA = ORATOR; MASTIG = STIGMA

What happened when he invested in a bee farm.

"(HE) GOT STUNG"

Today is "Have a Bad Day" Day. At least try to make it a good "bad day."

It is also Pencil Day and Pop Tarts Day.

Other things on this day in history:

1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.
1493 - Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).
1794 - The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.
1816 - Warsaw University is established.
1847 - The second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, is opened.
1863 - American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
1881 - A meteorite lands near the village of Großliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
1916 - Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures (the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers).
1941 - World War II: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.
1942 - World War II: Battle of Stalingrad - Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
1944 - World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling $14 billion USD in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
1946 - Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
1950 - US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe
1955 - National Review publishes its first issue.
1959 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
1967 - The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
1969 - Football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
1976 - Jaime Ornelas Camacho takes office as the first President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal.
1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1977 - Transportes Aereos Portugueses Boeing 727 crashes in Madeira islands killing 130.
1979 - Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
1984 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills about 500 people.
1985 - Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1985 - Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion USD verdict against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.
1988 - Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic publicly declared that Serbia was under attack from Albanian separatism in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.
1990 - Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It’s True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
1994 - In Great Britain, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.
1996 - Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire.
1997 - In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive. They would go on to become the first set of septuplets to survive infancy, with all seven alive in 2008.
1998 - Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
1998 - Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for $71.5 million USD.
1999 - Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.
1999 - In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.

We are going to visit Columbus, Ohio today.

The photos are: 1) a panoramic view of the Columbus skyline; 2) the Ohio Statehouse; 3) street arches in the Short North neighborhood; 4) Big Darby Creek; 5) a pond in Goodale Park; 6) the Franklin Park Conservatory; 7) the Columbus Museum of Art; and 8) Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State University Buckeyes football team.

Columbus is the capital, the largest and most populated city of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located near the geographic center of the state, Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County, although parts of the city also extend into Delaware and Fairfield counties. Named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. The city has a diverse economy based on education (it is home to Ohio State University, the largest university in the United States), insurance, healthcare, [[banking, retail, and technology. Acknowledged by Money Magazine as the 8th best large city in the U.S. to inhabit, it is also recognized as an emerging global city. Residents of Columbus are usually referred to as Columbusites.
The population was 711,470 at the 2000 census. Columbus is located within 550 miles (890 km) of half of the United States' population. In 2006 Columbus was ranked as the 15th largest city in the United States, with 747,755 residents, and was also the 32nd largest metropolitan area, the fourth largest city in the Midwest, and the fourth most populous Capital in the U.S.. The name Columbus is often used to refer to the Columbus Metropolitan Area, which includes many other municipalities. According to the US Census, the metropolitan area has a population of 1,754,337, while the Combined Statistical Area (which also includes Marion and Chillicothe) has 1,982,252 people.

Evidence of ancient mound-building societies abounds in the region near the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers. Mound Street, located in downtown Columbus, was so named because of its proximity to a large Native American burial mound. Numerous other earthworks were found throughout the area, including a surviving edifice on McKinley Avenue. Those ancient civilizations had long since faded into history when European explorers began moving into the region south of Lake Erie.
Rather than an empty frontier, however, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee, and Mingo nations. These tribes resisted expansion by the fledgling United States, resulting in years of bitter conflict. A decisive battle at Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville, which finally opened the way for new settlements. By 1797, a young surveyor from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant had founded a permanent settlement on the west bank of the forks of the Scioto River. An admirer of Benjamin Franklin, Sullivant chose to name his new frontier village "Franklinton." Although the location was desirable in its proximity to navigable rivers, Sullivant was initially foiled when, in 1798, a large flood wiped out the newly formed settlement. He persevered, and the village was rebuilt.

After Ohio achieved statehood in 1803, political infighting among Ohio's more prominent leaders resulted in the state capital moving from Chillicothe to Zanesville and back again. The state legislature finally decided that a new capital city, located in the center of the state, was a necessary compromise. Several of Ohio's small towns and villages petitioned the legislature for the honor of becoming the state capital, but ultimately a coalition of land speculators, with Sullivant's support, made the most attractive offer to the Ohio General Assembly. Named in honor of Christopher Columbus, the capital city was founded on February 14, 1812, on the "High Banks opposite Franklinton at the Forks of the Scioto known as Wolf's Ridge." At the time, this area was a dense forestland, used only as a hunting ground.

The Burough of Columbus was officially established on February 10, 1816. Nine people were elected to fill the various positions of Mayor, Treasurer, and others. Although the recent War of 1812 had brought prosperity to the area, the subsequent recession and conflicting claims to the land threatened the success of the new town. Early conditions were abysmal with frequent bouts of fevers and an outbreak of cholera in 1833.
The National Road reached Columbus from Baltimore in 1831, which complemented the city's new link to the Ohio and Erie Canal and facilitated a population boom. A wave of immigrants from Europe resulted in the establishment of two ethnic enclaves on the outskirts of the city. A significant Irish population settled in the north along Naghten Street (presently Nationwide Boulevard), while the Germans took advantage of the cheap land to the south, creating a community that came to be known as Das Alte Südende (The Old South End). Columbus' German population is responsible for constructing numerous breweries, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, and Capital University.
With a population of 3500, Columbus was officially chartered as a city on March 3, 1834. The legislature carried out a special act on that day, which granted legislative authority to the city council and judicial authority to the mayor. Elections were held in April of that year, with voters choosing one John Brooks as the first mayor.
In 1850 the Columbus and Xenia Railroad became the first railroad to enter the city, followed by the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad in 1851. The two railroads built a joint Union Station on the east side of High Street just north of Naghten (then called North Public Lane). Rail traffic into Columbus increased—by 1875 Columbus was served by eight railroads, and a new, more elaborate station was built.
The Great Southern Hotel, completed in 1897
On January 7, 1857, the Ohio Statehouse finally opened to the public after eighteen years of construction.
During the Civil War, Columbus was a major base for the volunteer Union Army that housed 26,000 troops and held up to 9,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Over 2,000 Confederate soldiers remain buried at the site, making it one of the largest Confederate cemeteries in the North. North of Columbus, along the Delaware Road, the Regular Army established Camp Thomas, where the 18th U.S. Infantry was organized and trained.
By virtue of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was founded in 1870 on the former estate of William and Hannah Neil.
By the end of the 19th century, Columbus saw the rise of several major manufacturing businesses. The city became known as the "Buggy Capital of the World," thanks to the presence of some two dozen buggy factories, notably the Columbus Buggy Company, which was founded in 1875 by C.D. Firestone. The Columbus Consolidated Brewing Company also rose to prominence during this time, and it may have achieved even greater success were it not for the influence of the Anti-Saloon League, based in neighboring Westerville. In the steel industry, a forward-thinking man named Samuel P. Bush presided over the Buckeye Steel Castings Company. Columbus was also a popular location for the organization of labor. In 1886, Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor in Druid's Hall on S. Fourth Street, and in 1890 the United Mine Workers of America was founded at old City Hall.

Columbus earned its nickname "The Arch City" because of the dozens of metal (formerly wooden) arches that spanned High Street at the turn of the twentieth century. The arches illuminated the thoroughfare and eventually became the means by which electric power was provided to the new streetcars. The arches were torn down and replaced with cluster lights in 1914, but were reconstructed in the Short North district in 2002 for their unique historical interest.
On March 25, 1913, a catastrophic flood devastated the neighborhood of Franklinton, leaving over ninety people dead and thousands of West Side residents homeless. To prevent future flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers recommended widening the Scioto River through downtown, constructing new bridges, and building a retaining wall along its banks. With the strength of the post-WWI economy, a construction boom occurred in the 1920s, resulting in a new Civic Center, the Ohio Theatre, the American Insurance Union Citadel, and, to the north, a massive new Ohio Stadium. Although the American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton in 1920, its head offices moved to Columbus in 1921 and remained in the city until 1941. In 1922, the association's name was changed to the National Football League. The same year, Coats Steam Car set up shop in Columbus, only to move to Bowling Green and ultimately fail.
The effects of the Great Depression were somewhat less severe in Columbus, as the city's diversified economy helped it fare marginally better than its Rust Belt neighbors. World War II brought a tremendous number of new jobs to the city, and with it another population surge. This time, the majority of new arrivals were migrants from the "extraordinarily depressed rural areas" of Appalachia, who would soon account for more than a third of Columbus' rising population. In 1948, the Town and Country Shopping Center opened in suburban Whitehall, and it is now regarded as one of the first modern shopping centers in the United States. Along with the construction of the interstate highway, it signaled the arrival of rapid suburban development in central Ohio. In order to protect the city's tax base from this suburbanization, Columbus adopted a policy of linking sewer and water hookups to annexation to the city. By the early 1990s, Columbus had grown to become Ohio's largest city in both land area and in population.
Efforts to revitalize Downtown Columbus have met with mixed results in recent decades. In the 1970s old landmarks such as Union Station and the Neil House Hotel were razed to construct high-rise offices and retail space such as the Huntington Center. Newer suburban developments at Tuttle Crossing, Easton, and Polaris have inhibited much of the anticipated downtown growth. Still, with the addition of the Arena District, as well as hundreds of downtown residential units, significant revitalization efforts are likely to continue in the downtown area.

Today's Jumble (11/18/08):

KLOYE = YOKEL; SAGYS = GASSY; MYSILF = FLIMSY; LABEZA = ABLAZE

CIRCLED LETTERS = ESSIMAL

Why the wanderer didn't enjoy hunting.

"(HE WAS) AIMLESS"

Today is Occult Day. Break out your Quija Boards or see an astrologer.

Mickey Mouse debuted in Steamboat Willie at the Colony Theater in New York on Nov. 18, 1928. Happy Birthday, Mickey.

It is also Push Button Phone Day and World Fellowship Day.

Other things on this day in history:

326 - The old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
1302 - Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal bull Unam sanctam (One Faith).
1307 - According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off of his son's head.
1421 - A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people in the Netherlands.
1477 - William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed on a printing press in England.
1493 - Christopher Columbus first sights what is now Puerto Rico.
1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
1686 - Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants.
1803 - The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.
1852 - Rose Philippine Duchesne dies in St. Charles, Missouri. She would be canonized on July 3, 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
1863 - King Christian IX of Denmark decided to sign the november constitution, which declared Schleswig as part of Denmark, what was seen by the German Confederation as a violation of the London Protocol and lead to the German–Danish war of 1864.
1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
1883 - American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
1903 - The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the Americans exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
1904 - General Esteban Huertas steps down after the government of Panama fears he wants to stage a coup.
1905 - Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway.
1909 - Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya.
1916 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.
1917 - Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
1928 - Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon stars Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday.
1929 - 1929 Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.
1930 - Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai, a Buddhist association later renamed Soka Gakkai, is founded by Japanese educators Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda.
1938 - Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
1940 - World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.
1940 - New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
1942 - Holocaust: German SS carry out selection of Jewish ghetto in Lviv, western Ukraine, arresting 5.000 "unproductive Jews". All get deported to the Belzec death camp.
1943 - World War II: Battle of Berlin (air), 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 air crew.
1943 - Holocaust: Aktion Emtefest: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lviv, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6.000 surviving Jews.German SS leader Fritz Katzman declares Lviv (Lemberg) to be Judenfrei (free from the Jews).
1947 - Ballantyne's Department Store fire, Christchurch, New Zealand, kills 41 (New Zealand's worst ever fire)
1970 - U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the Congress of the United States for $155 million USD in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government.
1978 - Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand.
1982 - Duk Koo Kim dies unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, Nevada, prompting reforms in the sport of boxing.
1985 - The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson, first appears in 30 newspapers across the U.S.
1985 - Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann's playing career comes to an end when a sack by the Giants' Lawrence Taylor snaps Theismann's legs, this was seen by a national audience on Monday Night Football.
1987 - Iran-Contra Affair: The U.S. Congress issues its final report on the Iran-Contras Affair.
1987 - King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.
1988 - War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for murder in regards to drug traffickers.
1991 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.
1991 - After the siege of Vukovar, the Croatian city of Vukovar capitulates to besieging Yugoslav People's Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces.
1993 - In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.
1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses.
2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.
2003 - In the United Kingdom, the Local Government Act 2003, repealing controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective.
2003 - The congress of the Communist Party of Indian Union (Marxist-Leninist) decides to merge the party into Kanu Sanyal's CPI(ML).
2004 - Russia officially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.