In 1871 Minneapolis built the first public waterworks in Minnesota to pump water from the Mississippi River. The city's attempts to provide clean, safe water led to decades of efforts to improve and expand the waterworks.

When the Fifth Infantry Regiment came west in 1819 to build a fort on the bluff where the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers flow together, some of the soldiers brought their wives and daughters with them. Women and girls made up around 20 percent of the fort’s population from the time of the first census in 1849 until at least 1900. They included the wives and daughters of officers but also lower-class women (wives and daughters of enlisted men, as well as their servants).

Dakota people in what is now Minnesota began using glass beads to decorate clothing, bags, and household items in the mid-nineteenth century. The practice both reinforced and transformed Dakota art, allowing Native artists to preserve a creative tradition that continues in the twenty-first century.

Ann Bilansky was the only woman executed by the action of Minnesota courts. She died in 1860, but doubts about her guilt remain alive.

The botched execution of William Williams was the last in Minnesota. After newspapers broke state law to report on the event, public opinion turned firmly against the death penalty, and it was repealed in 1911.

Pelagie Faribault was a métis (Native and European) woman who received Wita Tanka (Big Island, also called Pike Island) from her Dakota kin as part of an 1820 treaty with the United States. The Faribault family had influence among their Dakota relatives, and Pelagie in particular was known for her acts of generosity.

Minnesota’s farmers enjoyed an economic boom in the 1970s. Land values soared, United States exports of agricultural products grew, and farmers gained access to easy credit to expand their operations. When the 1980s brought a sharp decline in exports and land values, rising production costs, and higher interest rates on loans, many farmers found themselves in serious financial trouble. The farm crisis of the 1980s caused many farm foreclosures and bankruptcies—the worst economic conditions the agricultural sector had seen since the Great Depression.

The Farmers' Holiday Association was formed in 1932. The Midwestern organization successfully fought against farm foreclosures with novel strategies like penny auctions, but unsuccessfully lobbied Congress for a federal system that would pay farmers for their crops based on the cost of production.

The Father Louis Hennepin Bridge was built in 1855 to take advantage of the transport possibilities provided by the Mississippi River above St. Anthony Falls. It was the first bridge built to span the Mississippi river, and made crossing its length above the Falls much easier. The rushing rapids helped to create industry on the river and spurred a population boom that made Minneapolis the most populated city in Minnesota.

Thomas B. Walker is born in Xenia, Ohio. After making his fortune in lumber, he developed the Walker Art Gallery, which opened in 1894 and later became the Walker Art Center. He also played an instrumental role in the creation of the Minneapolis Public Library. He died in 1928.

The Northwestern Publishing Company is incorporated in St. Paul as a general job order printing office, with the subsidiary enterprise of publishing the Western Appeal (which became the Appeal in 1889), a weekly African American newspaper that had first appeared in 1885. Editor John Quincy Adams later called it a "National Afro-American Newspaper" and intended it to be a bold and active publication that would represent people marginalized by their race.

In the treaty ending the French and Indian War (a part of the Seven Years' War in Europe), France transfers to Britain the territory that later became Minnesota.