Willis A. Gorman is born in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. He was appointed second territorial governor of Minnesota in 1853 and later served in the legislature. He commanded the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, and was St. Paul's city attorney from 1869 until his death on May 20, 1876.

In a milestone of Minnesota's transportation history, Alexander T. Heine flies the first airplane over Minneapolis.

Stephen Miller is born in Carroll, Pennsylvania. After moving to Minnesota at age forty-two, he was a general in the Civil War and served as the state's fourth governor from 1864 to 1865. He died in Worthington on August 18, 1881.

The Catholic Industrial School is incorporated. The school began operations in 1877 on the shores of St. Paul's Lake Menith, later drained and used as the site of the University of St. Thomas. In 1879 the school moved to Clontarf, where Franciscan teachers instructed white and Native American boys in agricultural and industrial arts. Funding for such institutions was later cut, and the school was sold to the federal government in 1897.

A sewing club called the St. Paul Circle of Industry is formed to raise money for a new school building in St. Paul. The building was completed in August 1849.

Maude Kegg, elder of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and author of books on her childhood and Ojibwe stories, dies. Born on August 26, 1904, she was raised in traditional Ojibwe lifeways. In 1990 she earned a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for her traditional beadwork.

After presiding over the Reserve Mining lawsuit for two and a half years, Judge Miles Lord is removed from the case because he is thought to have a bias against the company.

Mining classes begin at the University of Minnesota as Professor William R. Appleby instructs a class of four students.

Walter "Fritz" Mondale is born in Ceylon, Minnesota. A lifelong public servant, he would represent Minnesota in the US Senate, occupy the vice presidency under Jimmy Carter, run for president against Ronald Reagan, and serve as US ambassador to Japan.

Joseph R. Brown is born in Harford County, Maryland.