Today in 1953, Ohio became a state… which was weird, because Ohio had already been a state for a century and a half.
Technicalities can be that way.
The land we now call Ohio had been home to Indigenous people for tens of thousands of years before Europeans began settling there in the 1700s.
The state’s name comes from the Ohio River, which comes from an Iroquois word meaning “great river.”
Ohio was the first state to come from the land early Americans called the Northwest Territory.
In November 1802, Ohioans held a convention, approved a constitution, and requested that Congress grant statehood, which Congress did in early 1803.
The new state proceeded to become a big part of the country: it’s given us astronauts like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, musicians like Chrissie Hynde and John Legend, big movie names like Halle Berry and Steven Spielberg – not to mention eight US presidents and three or four vice presidents.
In 1953, some schoolteachers came to Washington DC to see the state’s founding documents as part of the celebrations for Ohio’s 150th birthday.
And they made a pretty important discovery on that trip: Congress had approved Ohio’s request for statehood, but it had not formally approved Ohio’s constitution, as required by federal law back then.
So Ohio hadn’t quite become a state after all!
The technicality put a cloud of suspicion over Rutherford B Hayes’ otherwise non-controversial rise to the White House!
Fortunately lawmakers of the 1950s decided on a quick fix: they voted to fully recognize Ohio as a state.
This happened after every state other than Alaska and Hawaii had received statehood, but we don’t call Ohio the 48th state today because Congress voted to make Ohio’s statehood retroactive to March 1, 1803.
So the 17th state stayed the 17th state after all.
Today is National Pizza Party Day.
Back in 2019, a guy in Nashville started a social media page called The Free Pizza Dude to connect people in need with donors willing to send a little pizza their way.
At last count, fans of the page provided over 15,000 meals and more than 1,100 orders for groceries.
Maybe you can slice into a good cause today?
Ohio: The 48th State? (Ohio History Connection)
Nashville man helps hundreds of people in need get a free pizza every week (NewsChannel 5 Nashville)
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