- Carbon (from Latin carbo ‘coal’) is a chemical element; it has symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 electrons. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up about 0.025 percent of Earth’s crust. Three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of 5,700 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity.
- Nisqually Chief Quiemuth is murdered in Olympia on November 19, 1856. (historylink.org)
In the early-morning hours of November 19, 1856, Nisqually Chief Quiemuth (d. 1856), a half-brother of Chief Leschi (1808-1858), is murdered in Olympia. Both Leschi and Quiemuth had fought white settlers and soldiers in the Indian Wars of 1855 and 1856, but Quiemuth had tired of war, and shortly after Leschi’s capture, had surrendered into the custody of Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862). Later the same night, as he is resting in Stevens’s home while awaiting transfer to Fort Steilacoom, he is shot and stabbed to death. The assailant will never be positively identified and no one will ever be convicted of the crime.