Historic

The Anne Arundel County Historical Society has opened the historic Benson-Hammond House and North Browse and Buy Shoppe at Aviation Boulevard and Andover Road in Linthicum for the season. Tours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Group tours are by appointment. Information: 410-760-9679.

These groups meet regularly. Afternoon Tea at Historic Oakland - One Thursday a month, 4:30-6 p.m. Historic Oakland, 5430 Vantage Point Road, Columbia. Tea, sandwiches, desserts and more will be served. 410-730-4744, 800-730-4802 or http://www.historic-oakland.com . A Novel Idea - Fourth Thursday, 7 p.m. Discussion of recently published novels. Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Long Gate Shopping Center, Montgomery Road, Ellicott City. 410-203-9001. The Bet Aviv Camera Club - Fourth Monday, 7:30 p.m. Learn about the many facets of photography.

The 3,000-mile water and land trail network created to relive the Chesapeake Bay's 17th century exploration by English colonists is about to grow still larger. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis are slated to visit Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis this afternoon to celebrate the addition of four new river river trails to the existing Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail .  The federal officials are to be joined by Gov.Martin O'Malley, local officials, Native American tribal leaders and conservation group representatives.

Making history is becoming a habit during the 2012 baseball season. We're little more than a month into it, and we've seen both a perfect game and one so imperfect that it ended with two position players as the pitchers of record Sunday in Boston. So why should anyone be surprised that Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton slammed four home runs Tuesday night at Oriole Park to etch his name into the record books? Hamilton, whose story of drug addiction and redemption is the stuff of sermons and script writers, hit two home runs off Orioles starter Jake Arrieta, one off newly arrived reliever Zach Phillips and one off sidearmer Darren O'Day to become the 16th player in major league history to go deep four times in a game and only the second to do it against the Orioles.

Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton had 10 homers coming into Tuesday's game, including one Monday night. By the eighth inning Tuesday, he had 14 on the season. Yes, Hamilton had four homers - all of the two-run variety - on Tuesday. It's the 16 th time that has happened in major league baseball history and only the second involving the Orioles. The first was  June 10, 1959, when Cleveland's Rocky Colavito hit four at Memorial Stadium. Hamilton also had a double in his five at-bats for 18 total bases, which sets an American League record, one behind the 19 total bases recorded by the Los Angeles Dodgers' Shawn Green in 2002.

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, best known for its summer productions outdoors on the hilltop grounds of the 19th-century Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, has purchased a historic site for its second home — the 1885 Mercantile Trust & Deposit Co. building in downtown Baltimore. That distinctive red building, currently the home of the Club Dubai, was purchased for the nonprofit theater company's use by the Helm Foundation at a price of $1.25 million, the first step in a project with an estimated total cost of about $6 million.

There's a new exhibit waiting to greet summer visitors at Delaware's Cape Henlopen State Park. And it's big. It's a 16-inch gun barrel that once roared from the deck of the battleship Missouri during World War II, and it now rests — 120 tons, 68 feet long — at the Battery 519 Museum at Fort Miles, which is part of Cape Henlopen State Park. The gun — officially known as Barrel 371 — arrived at Fort Miles last month. It is similar to the two 16-inch Army guns that defended the coast and the Delaware Bay from German U-boats.

A multicolored grouping of four clapboard rowhouses in Fells Point stands out like Gerbera daisies against the Formstone and brick fronts of its neighbors on either side. Architect Myrna Poirier calls one of these gems home and will soon invite visitors beyond her threshold as part of the Historic Harbor House Tour of Fells Point on Mother's Day. In keeping with the facade of her home, the interior is a color-infused, uplifting space. "Color is so important," she said. "A lot of people don't realize what color does for your spirits," pointing to an open interior 50 feet deep, with soft pastel paint on the walls in each room, richly embellished textiles from all over the world hanging on them and the morning sun bursting through ceiling skylights.

Jean C. Fulton, an artist who worked in watercolors and metal, and with her husband transformed the derelict Monkton Hotel into a venue for artists and vendors, died Sunday of multiple organ failure at Sinai Hospital. The one-time Monkton and Tuscany-Canterbury resident was 79. The daughter of Wallace Oles and Charlotte Lehman Oles, Jean Carolyn Oles was born in Baltimore and raised on Enfield Road in Homeland. The family had founded the Oles Envelope Co. in 1912. After graduating from Bryn Mawr School in 1951, she attended Goucher College.

On April 8, 1992, in the first inning of the second game at Camden Yards, Cleveland Indians first baseman Paul Sorrento hit the first home run in the history of the ballpark. It was a three-run shot hit off Orioles pitcher Bob Milacki to left-center field on a 1-2 pitch. That and other details are easily accessible in The Baltimore Sun's home runs database , which enables users to search for every longball hit in an Orioles game since Camden Yards opened 20 years ago. It includes all home runs hit at the ballpark, as well as those hit on the road during that time period.

Howard County doesn't have the sailing tradition of Annapolis, the boardwalk of Ocean City or the storied battlefields of Gettysburg. But it does have a prime spot between two big cities, a historic downtown, miles of mountain biking trails and plenty of money to lure tourists. Over the past year, county leaders have dramatically increased spending to promote Howard as a convenient destination between Baltimore and Washington, seeking a regional niche to help draw visitors from around the Mid-Atlantic.