Dipity
In November, the National Transportation Safety Board officially concludes that a design flaw from the 1960s was the probable cause of the August 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minne...
High fuel prices were a major reason Delta Air Lines swallowed up Northwest Airlines, a mainstay of the Minnesota economy, in a combination that closed in October and made Atlanta-based Delta the w...
The national economic meltdown hit hard in Minnesota, where unemployment reaches nearly 6 1/2 percent by November. As the economy tanks, Minnesota companies lay off thousands of workers. One of...
The 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapses during rush hour, killing thirteen and injuring 145. Multilevel investigations into what caused the bridge to fail go on for month...
Paul Molitor's career was forged on the strength of collecting base hits, versatility in the field and savvy on the base paths. As a member of the Brewers, Twins, and Blue Jays, the seven-time All-...
Minneapolis native Peter Agre receives the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of water channels in cell membranes.
The Rocori High Schhol shootings occurred in Cold Spring, Minnesota, on September 24, 2003. Then 15-year-old John Jason McLaughlin shot and killed high school Seth Bartell, 15, and Aaron Rollins, 17.
U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, and five others died when their plane crashed near Eveleth on October 25, 2002. He was on his way to debate Norm Coleman in Duluth...
On January 29, 2002, Mee Moua took office as the first Hmong woman to be elected to the Minnesota Senate. She holds the highest office of any Hmong American politician and has served as a majority ...
The Oak Ridge Lutheran Church is moved to the Norwegian Emigrant Museum in Hamar, Norway. It will be reconstructed to become the Norwegian Memorial Church of Emigration.
The gripping song "Runaway Train" won lead singer Dave Pirner a Grammy as "Best Rock Song of the Year" in 1994. Learn more: Soul Asylum History Topic, Minnesota Historical Society Soul Asylu...
Somali teachers, professionals, and elders who have escaped their country's civil war establish the Confederation of the Somali Community in Minnesota. The organization sponsors cultural events and...
Alan Page, the soul of the Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" defense, turns to law once his football days are over. The assistant state attorney general asks that voters vote for Alan Page the lawyer...
The Minnesota Twins win the World Series over the Atlanta Braves 4 games to 3. After placing last the year before, the Twins turn it around to win the World Series in one of the most dramatic ch...
A team from the University of Minnesota invents Internet Gopher, a text-based interface for retrieving documents on the Internet. The breakthrough system is quickly adopted around the world and int...
After finishing sixth in their division in 1986, the Twins take it all in '87, outlasting the Saint Louis Cardinals in seven games. Thousands of long-suffering fans turn out for a victory parade th...
A Year of Reconciliation is proclaimed 125 years after the U.S.-Dakota Conflict. A series of events and programs seeks to heal long-standing wounds.
Saint Louis Park natives Joel and Ethan Coen are well known for their cinematic works, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (199...
Rudy Perpich takes office as the state's 36th governor, elected this time on his own. Learn more: Governors of Minnesota, Minnesota Historical SocietyMore images in the Minnesota Historical S...
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, opened on April 3, 1982. Learn more at: More photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art Databa...
Eight women bank workers in the small town of Willmar, Minnesota, found themselves in the forefront of the fight for equal-pay for working women when they conducted one of the first gender-discrimi...
On July 29, 1974, Dr. Jeannette Piccard and ten other women broke the barrier so long in place against the ordination of women to the priesthood of the Anglican Church when they were "irregularly" ...
Anoka's Garrison Keillor reinvents the radio variety show and makes his "A Prairie Home Companion" a public radio institution. His affectionate tales of Lake Wobegon, the mythical Minnesota town "t...
Over 2,500 music lovers listen to the Minnesota Orchestra play Stravinsky, Bach, and Beethoven at the opening of Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis.
Governor Wendell Anderson appears on the cover of the August 13, 1973, issue of Time magazine holding up a fish. The cover story—"Minnesota, A State That Works"—is on the Good Life in Minnesota. ...
The Walker Art Center opens its new building adjacent to the Guthrie Theater. The new space allows the Walker to show off its recent acquisitions, including works by such contemporary stars as ...
Wendell R. Anderson takes office as the state's 32nd governor. Governor Anderson resigns in late 1976 to become U.S. Senator. Learn more: Governors of Minnesota, Minnesota Historical SocietyM...
The Minnesota North Stars debut as a National Hockey League expansion team. The home of the North Stars, Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, was built in 12 months (October 3, 1966, groundbr...
"Beatlemania" comes to the Twin Cities as the "Fab Four" bring their American tour to Metropolitan Stadium. The Beatles performed at Metropolitan Stadium to a crowd of 4,000 on August 21, 1965. "...
The “Fridley tornado” hits eleven counties in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The northern suburbs of the Twin Cities are hit particularly hard. Fourteen people die, more than 680 are injured, a...
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area, named in 1958, gains new protections in the federal Wilderness Act. Amid conflict between recreationists and conservationists, more than one million acres of forests...
The Guthrie Theater, named for its founder and first artistic directory, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, opens in Minneapolis with a performance of Hamlet. Known as an innovator "interested in places that ...
Coach Norm Van Brocklin and rookie quarterback Fran Tarkenton (on his right) celebrate the Minnesota Vikings' opening-day upset of the Chicago Bears. The National Football League expansion team...
Marcel Breuer, born in Hungary in 1902, designed many buildings on the St. John's Abbey and University campus, including the Abbey Church. Construction of the church lasted from May 19, 1958, to A...
Calvin Griffith's Washington Senators are reborn as the Minnesota Twins. They lose ninety games in 1961, but Killebrew, Battey, and Kaat lead them to an American League pennant four years later. ...
Hibbing's Bob Dylan, once a play-for-free minstrel at bars around the University of Minnesota, releases his first album. He takes folk into rock and rock into politics, and becomes a legend of Amer...
Freeway construction passes through established neighborhoods in the Twin Cites. The Rondo neighborhood, long a center of black community life in St. Paul, is razed to make way for Interstate 94. F...
Water from the seven seas christen the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean and making Duluth a world port. Learn more at: More photos in the M...
The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is formed under the direction of Leopold Sipe. Dennis Russel Davies takes over the baton in 1972 and brings the SPCO to international recognition.
Nearly 1.5 million cars are registered in Minnesota, double the number in 1945. Learn more at: More photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art Database
Albert Woolson, the last surviving Union veteran of the Civil War, died in Duluth. He was 109. Learn more at: More photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art Database
Congress authorizes the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Eventually, I-35 and I-94 link urban and rural Minnesota, while metropolitan multi-lanes connect suburb with city, home w...
Taconite promises to save an Iron Range that is running short of iron. New technology converts low-grade taconite rock into concentrated iron pellets and Reserve Mining Company opens a mine and pro...
Lunch with Casey Jones (Roger Awsumb) becomes a noontime tradition for Twin Cities youngsters—and later for their children. Casey and his cast of regulars—including Joe the Cook, Roundhouse Rod...
The population of Cottage Grove Township grows sixfold in the 1950s. Builders convert thousands of acres of farmland into suburban housing tracts that promise wholesome family living within commuti...
Turkey farmer Earl Olson buys a processing plant in Willmar, the beginning of Jennie-O Foods. Wheat feed and the growth of Jennie-O and related companies make this region a hub of turkey farming. ...
Most sources credit Governor Luther Youngdahl with holding the first event in 1948; however, there is no evidence that he was at Mille Lacs in May of 1948, much less hosting a fishing party there. ...
The "All GI Girls Spam Post 570" drum and bugle corps becomes the Hormel Girls—a 60-woman troupe of multi-talented entertainers. They star in a network radio show and hit the road in a 35-car c...
Nearly half the students in Minnesota colleges and universities are World War II veterans studying under the benefits of the G.I. Bill. This boom in people going to college rides alongside a ho...
For the next forty years, "Plowville" will draw huge crowds to watch the crowning of the "Queen of the Furrows," learn the latest soil-conservation techniques, and listen to speeches by state and n...
One hundred fifty German POWs sit out the war at Camp Number One near Moorhead, a branch camp of the base camp at Algona, Iowa. Farmers short of help pay the government 40 cents an hour for their l...
Four months into his third term, Harold E. Stassen resigned as governor and enlisted in the Navy.
Stars fall on Minnesota as the "Hollywood Victory Caravan" descends on the Twin Cities to raise relief funds for the Army and Navy during World War II.
Fort Snelling once again becomes an induction and training center during World War II. Over 300,000 recruits pass through the 120-year-old fortress on their way to battlefields in Europe and Asia. ...
The Military Intelligence Service Language School comes to Savage. The school trains Nisei (children of Japanese immigrants) for intelligence and translation work with the Pacific forces. By the ti...
The up-tempo harmonies of the Andrews Sisters (Patti, Maxene, and LaVerne) are some of the biggest hits on wartime juke boxes. The Minneapolis trio will sell 60 million records before LaVerne dies ...
A surprise blizzard drops up to 27 inches of snow on the state, resulting in the deaths of 49 civilians and 59 sailors. Many of the dead are duck hunters who were caught unprepared after the day's ...
Frances Ethel Gumm (Judy Garland) grew up singing and dancing with her sisters at her father's movie house in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The family moved to California, and in 1939 17-year-old Jud...
Harold E. Stassen takes office as the state's 25th governor. At the age of 31, Stassen was the youngest governor in the state's history. He goes on to be re-elected governor in 1940 and again in...
Elmer A. Benson takes office as the state's 24th governor. Learn more at: Governors of Minnesota, Minnesota Historical Society More photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art ...
Hjalmar Petersen takes office as the state's 23rd governor upon the death of Governor Floyd B. Olson. Following his short stint as governor, Petersen tries and fails four times to regain the of...
A heat wave, with temperatures over 100 degrees, hit much of the state. Residents of Saint Paul slept outside trying to get cool.
Protesting farmers bring a starving cow and horse to the steps of the capitol to dramatize the desperate conditions in rural Minnesota. Droughts for the last six years have ruined crops and deplete...
Folksy Cedric Adams launches his daily "In This Corner" newspaper column in 1935 and soon becomes Minnesota's first media celebrity. His writings and regular appearances on WCCO radio make "Mr. Upp...
Frederick McKinley Jones was a self-taught, African-American engineer who pioneered designs for mobile refrigeration. A former race car driver and mechanic, Jones created the first mechanical refri...
Piano player Norvy Mulligan, announcer Doug Baldwin, Cowboy Jim, and the WCCO Noon Hi-Lites are a midday hit on Minnesota radios. Learn more at: WCCO entry in the MN150 wiki.
Workers at George A. Hormel and Company stage the first sit-down strike in the U.S., taking over the Austin meat-packing plant for three days. The tactic works; Hormel agrees to submit wage demands...
Sauk Centre's Sinclair Lewis, who satirized small-town complacency and back-slapping boosterism in such novels as Main Street, Babbitt, and Elmer Gantry, becomes the first American to win the Nobel...
Big Stone Canning Company introduces its Butter Kernel brand of whole canned corn. A local innovation perfects the process of cutting whole kernels off the cob, bringing canned corn to kitchen tabl...
Described by Advertising Age as "a fugitive from a Grimm's fairy tale," a hulking green giant becomes the symbol of the Minnesota Valley Canning Company in Le Sueur. The giant gets jollier and more...
Theodore Christianson takes office as the state's 21st governor. Learn more at: Governors of Minnesota, Minnesota Historical SocietyMore photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and A...
In the early 1920s, Charles Fremont Dight, a physician in Minneapolis, launched a crusade to bring the eugenics movement to Minnesota. He combined the moral philosophy of eugenics with socialism an...
Mexican-Americans in St. Paul form the Anahuac Society. The organization sponsors social events and encourages participation in community affairs and the celebration of traditional Mexican holidays.
The School Safety Patrol is founded in Minnesota. Starting at Cathedral School in St. Paul, the program is a school-police program for boys to help fellow elementary-school students cross busy stre...
J. A. O. Preus takes office as the state's 20th governor. Learn more: Governors of Minnesota, Minnesota Historical SocietyMore photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art Databas...
Minnesota women vote for the first time in state and national elections after passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The path to the ballot box has been long for Minnesota women, w...
In 1920, Duluth is home to a small black community. It is a period of heightened racial conflict across the country. On June 15, 1920, police arrest several young black men accused of raping a whit...
The eighth convention of the Society of American Indians is held in Minneapolis. "It is not right that the Indian, who fought for his country in France, go back to his tribe without the right t...
The farmers' Nonpartisan League, a reform group that advocates state control of the grain industry, runs candidates in the Republican primary. The NPL loses in the primary, but joins Minnesota's br...
This strike was called on October 6, 1917, six months after the United States declared war against Germany. The International Workers of the World (IWW), the "Wobblies," were organizing labor union...
The state records its highest temperature of 114 degrees Fahrenheit. The record-holder is the town of Beardsley, winning on July 29. (Moorhead will tie this record on July 16, 1936.) ...
Close to 120,000 soldiers and 1,000 nurses leave Minnesota to serve in World War I; 3,480 will not return. Learn more at: 151st Field Artillery, History Topic, Minnesota Historical Society.
More than 17,000 Indians volunteer in the U.S. armed forces despite their exclusion from the draft of the nation's citizens. Even before the U.S. entered the war, others had crossed the border to j...
Anti-German hysteria runs rampant during the war. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety is given sweeping powers to bully German Minnesotans, suppress the right of free speech, break strikes, a...
Minnesota's first Girl Scout troop is chartered in 1917. Learn more: More photos in the Minnesota Historical Society Photo and Art Database. You can add to: The Girl Scouts of Minnesota nom...
Shipwrecks from a mighty 1905 November gale prompted this rugged landmark's construction. The construction was an engineering feat in such a remote location. The lighthouse was completed by the U.S...
A growing fear of "boys in trouble" leads to the founding of Minnesota's first Boy Scout troop, only eight months after the organization arrives in the United States from England.
President Theodore Roosevelt establishes Superior National Forest. Exploitative practices are restricted in these areas, thereby preserving the beauty of lakes and trees for future generations. Si...
The great Dan Patch is the king of American harness racing. The big bay stallion, stabled in Savage, sets a record time for the mile at the State Fair in 1906 and lends his name to products and pro...
The Aerial Bridge is completed in Duluth. The bridge permits land traffic to cross the ship canal without interfering with the ships that pass in and out of the harbor. A lift bridge replaces the ...
John A. Johnson takes office as the state's 16th governor. Johnson became the first Minnesota-born governor, the first to serve a full term in the present state capitol, and the first to die in ...
Dr. Albert Alonzo "Doc" Ames served four terms as mayor of Minneapolis. His fourth term began in January 1901 and ended with his resignation in August 1902 after a grand jury exposed the corruption...
Samuel R. Van Sant takes office as the state's 15th governor on January 7, 1901. Samuel Van Sant began his career as a riverboat builder on the Upper Mississippi. As Minnesota's fifteenth govern...
Rural Free Delivery brings the mail directly to Minnesota farms. Service develops slowly, but by 1901 134 routes are serving 67,000 people. A 1900 U.S. postmaster general report shows that RFD ...
Lieutenant Governor D. M. (David Marston) Clough becomes the state's 13th governor on Jan 31, 1895, when Governor Knute Nelson resigns to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. Clough's first administr...
Minneaplis fireman Lewis Rober invented outdoor softball in 1895. Called kitten ball by Rober, who hand-made the leather balls himself. Rober was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame in...
Extremely dry conditions, high winds, and acres of tender-dry "slash" left over from timber cutting, combine to create a horrific fire with walls of flame 200 feet high reaching temperatures of 1,6...
German immigrant Frederick Weyerhaeuser, one of the most powerful men in American lumbering, moves his offices to St. Paul. Skilled at bringing competitors together in huge undertakings, he makes h...
The state legislature passes a mandatory school-attendance law, requiring all children between the ages of 8 and 16 to attend 12 weeks of school a year.
A tornado sweeps through Dodge County, killing five, and then lands in Rochester, killing thirty-one. Mother Alfred Moes and the Sisters of St. Francis convert their school into an emergency hospit...
Dr. William W. Mayo takes his sons into his practice. Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie eventually specialize in surgery and build the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Learn more at: Mayo Clinic...
When 200 Jewish refugees from Russia arrive unexpectedly at the St. Paul train depot, local residents help out by housing them in tents on the city's west side. Many of the new Minnesotans settle t...
The falls of St. Anthony power the first hydroelectric central station operating in the United States. People had been using water to run machinery for thousands of years, but those machines were l...
Lucius F. Hubbard becomes the state's 9th governor on January 10, 1882. Hubbard forcefully urges government intervention in public health, corrections, charities, railroads, agriculture, and com...
The first state capitol building burns. Three hundred people escape safely, but the building, including the law library, is a total loss. Luckily, most of the Minnesota Historical Society's artifac...
Minnesota wheat and the power of St. Anthony Falls make Minneapolis the nation's capital of flour milling. A year later, Pillsbury's new A Mill is the largest flour mill in the world. Learn ...
Lumberman Thomas B. Walker attaches an art gallery to his house and opens it to the people of Minneapolis—the first public art gallery in the Northwest. He later deeds his collection and a buil...
Icelander Gunnlauger Petursson relocates to Lyon County, laying the foundation for the second largest Icelandic colony in the United States. Its residents acquire land in surrounding Lincoln and Ye...
Investors grow wheat on a grand scale in the Red River Valley. Their "bonanza farms" cover thousands of acres and are harvested by huge crews and the latest machinery. A financial panic in 1873...
Cushman K. Davis takes office as the state's seventh governor. During his single term as Minnesota's seventh governor, Cushman K. Davis confronted a menace that threatened to ruin the state's fa...
Grasshoppers darken the skies of southwestern Minnesota. For the next five summers they strip the land bare. Charities and the state provide some relief, but many farmers lose everything. "'The...
Epizootic fever strikes horses throughout the Midwest. The three-month sickness plunges horse-powered Minnesota into its first energy crisis.
New bridges across the Mississippi unite the communities of Minneapolis and St. Anthony. With the addition of the older town on the east side of the river, Minneapolis will have a population of 46,...
Elk River homesteader Oliver H. Kelley, claiming to be "as full of public spirit as a dog is full of fleas," leads the founding of the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange. The organization, which i...
William R. Marshall becomes the state's fifth governor. Energy and ambition characterized the life of Minnesota's fifth—and only southern-born—governor. During William Marshall's administration,...
Stephen Miller takes office as the state's fourth governor. His military career during the Civil War and Ramsey's support assured Miller of a gubernatorial victory in 1863. He was the first of s...
A state-supported school for the deaf opens in Faribault. Instruction for blind students begins the next year. Classes are aimed at making students productive members of society: boys learn tra...
Outraged by the war, white Minnesotans want the Dakota punished. Governor Ramsey insists that they "must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State." Thirty-eight Dakota ...
In the Battle of Birch Coulee, Dakota warriors surround a detachment of 160 soldiers and fight them for thirty hours.
Over the next 30 years more than 350 families from the province of Dalarna in Sweden pick up and move to Isanti County. They recongregate around their parish churches. This emigration represent...
Minnesota's first railroad line begins operation when the William Crooks travels ten miles from St. Paul to the village of St. Anthony (present-day Minneapolis). Within ten years the state is laced...
Governor Alexander Ramsey is in Washington when the Civil War breaks out. He rushes to the White House and is the first to pledge troops for defense of the Union. Slavery has never been legal i...
Minnesota's first shipment of spring wheat is warmly received in Chicago--marking the start of an agricultural export that will become King in coming years. Production grows wildly as railroads con...
Henry H. Sibley takes office as the state's first governor. He served three times as territorial delegate to Congress, and with statehood imminent, he played a leading role in drafting the Minne...
Jane Grey Swisshelm, an outspoken critic of slavery and unequal treatment of women, moves to Minnesota in 1857 and publishes the St. Cloud Visiter newspaper. Mobs twice destroy her printing off...
Before it can become a state, Minnesota Territory must draw up a constitution. Republicans and Democrats disagree on fundamental issues and hold separate conventions. Much of the debate focuses on ...
The first permanent bridge over the main channel of the Mississippi River opens. It spans the river between Minneapolis and Nicollet Island. The cable suspension bridge could be crossed by payin...
Willis Arnold Gorman takes office as the territory's 2nd governor. As a U.S. Representative from Indiana, he supported Franklin Pierce in his successful bid for the presidency and was rewarded with...
Farmers in Benton County form the state's first county agricultural society. Oliver H. Kelley, who would later found the National Grange, is one of ten charter members. County agricultural society ...
Fourteen-year-old John Ireland comes to St. Paul. He later serves as bishop and archbishop of Minnesota for more than 40 years and promotes Catholic immigration to the state.
The Dakota sign treaties at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, relinquishing all of their land in Minnesota. They are to move onto two reservations on the Minnesota River and receive about 12 cents an...
Twenty students begin at the University of Minnesota. Beginning in a small building with only one teacher, the university won't offer college-level instruction until 1869.
Editor James Goodhue published the first issue of The Minnesota Pioneer on April 28, 1849. The first issue of The Minnesota Register was printed April 7, 1849, but in Cincinnati, Ohio; the seco...
Stephen Douglas proposes a bill for the creation of the Minnesota Territory.
Pioneer businessman Franklin Steele builds a sawmill at the falls of Saint Anthony. By 1856, there are eight mills at the falls.
Fort Snelling’s temperature remains below freezing every day throughout February and March. March 1843 is the coldest on record at the time. Learn more: More images of Fort Snelling in the Mi...
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which established the boundary between the United States and Canada, was signed by the United States and Great Britain. Minnesota's "Northwest Angle" was a result of t...
Métis families (formed by marriages between whites and Indians) take their furs from the Red River Valley to St. Paul in oxcarts. Long caravans of up to 200 carts travel from as far away as Winnipe...
Six students attend the opening of the Lake Harriet Mission School for the Dakota, founded by the Reverend Jedediah D. Stevens. An early example of education within the boundaries of present-day Mi...
Samuel and Gideon Pond, missionaries at Lake Calhoun, begin a lifelong study of the Dakota language. They compile dictionaries and grammars and put Dakota speech into written form.
Young Henry Sibley takes over the American Fur Company post at Mendota in 1834 and stays on to be a leader in building Minnesota. He will become Minnesota's first territorial delegate to Congress a...
Minnesota's first post office is established at Fort Snelling.
In 1819, the 5th Regiment of Infantry arrived at the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers to build the northwest link in this chain of forts and agencies. Here, where traffic could be c...
The Virginia is the first steamboat to reach Fort Snelling. Needed supplies are missing from the cargo, though the boat does carry the umbrella-wielding Italian count Giacomo Beltrami.
Colonel Henry Leavenworth and the Fifth Infantry arrive in Mendota to build what will become Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers.
Hennepin exaggerates his exploring feats in a book he writes after returning to France. In one colorful chapter he romanticizes St. Anthony Falls, turning it into a dream destination for adventure ...
Tensions mount between the Dakota and the Ojibwe newcomers. At a meeting arranged by Daniel du Luth, a European trader interested in keeping the peace, they strike a bargain. The Dakota agree to le...
Claude Allouez, a missionary on Madeline Island in the 1660s, explores the western and northern shores of Lake Superior. In 1671, he produces one of the best early maps of the lake, indicating the ...
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