A group of abolitionists in Minneapolis persuades Judge Charles E. Vanderburgh to issue a writ of habeas corpus or an order to bring to court Eliza Winston, an enslaved woman of a visiting southern family. Vanderburgh then declares her to be free, as she is living in a free state. Her freedom provides a boost to the antislavery cause at the same time that it discourages Southerners from traveling to Minnesota, much to the dismay of the state's tourism industry.
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 hospital, with Dr. William Mayo supervising. Realizing the need for a permanent hospital in the city, Moes establishes St. Mary's Hospital on October 1, 1889. This facility would evolve into the Mayo Clinic.
A tornado strikes the city of Rochester and Olmsted County, killing thirty-eight people in fifteen minutes. The force of the winds is enough to drive a picket through a spruce tree and to pick up boxcars full of flour before gently setting them back down on the track.
The Beatles perform at Metropolitan Stadium to an estimated crowd of 4,000 teenagers, mostly young women, turning the event into what one writer described as "Shrieksville, USA." With the continued popularity of Beatles's recordings long after their breakup in 1970, the irony of early panning is shown in sharp relief by a Pioneer Press comment on the performance: "The Twin Cities was visited Saturday by some strange citizens from another world.
Robert Blaeser (White Earth Ojibwe), co-founder of the Native American Bar Association, is sworn in as the Twin Cities' first judge of Native American descent.
The Minnesota [Farmers'] Alliance and the Knights of Labor hold a conference to organize the Farm and Labor Party, nominating Ignatius Donnelly as their gubernatorial candidate. Donnelly, however, withdrew from the race, and the nascent party collapsed.
Coya Knutson is born in Edmore, North Dakota. In 1954 she became the first woman member of Congress from Minnesota, and she was respected nationwide for her stance on agriculture issues and her championing of family farmers. In 1958, however, members of her own party conspired with her husband Andy Knutson to keep her from winning a third congressional term. Known as the "Coya Come Home" episode, the scandal is what most people remember about Knutson, rather than her political record as a congresswoman.
A drug raid leaves an eleven-year-old boy injured by a policeman's bullet and incites violent protests in North Minneapolis.The protest comes two weeks after another young African American man was shot by police in the same neighborhood, and protesters accuse the police of targeting African Americans. The press are targets of violence during the protest.
Joseph R. Brown arrives at the site of Henderson, which he would name for his mother's family. Brown had been involved in various ventures, serving as a soldier, explorer, farmer, lumberman, legislator, and Indian agent in the early years of the territory.
Twenty-four townspeople are killed at the second Battle of New Ulm during the US–Dakota War of 1862. Although the Dakota come close to victory, the barricaded defenders, led by Judge Charles E. Flandrau, manage to hold the town's center. Among the dead is Captain William Dodd, who had founded St. Peter in 1853 and laid out the Dodd Road from St. Paul to Mankato.
Colonel Henry Leavenworth and the Fifth Infantry arrive in Mendota to build a fort at the confluence the Dakota call Bdote, where the Mnisota Wakpa (St. Peters/Minnesota River) intersects the Wakpa Tanka (Mississippi River). The following August, Colonel Josiah Snelling takes command of the fort, which is known as Fort St.
Reacting to protests in New Ulm over the use of draftees in World War I, the Commission of Public Safety, under orders from Governor Joseph A. A. Burnquist, suspends Mayor Louis A. Fritsche from office. Other city officials and the president of Martin Luther College are also removed from their positions. These actions effectively end the protests, although Fritsche was later reelected.
Congress establishes the state's first national monument: Pipestone National Monument in southwestern Minnesota. Native people, including the Dakota, have mined pipestone (catlinite) from the quarry inside the monument for hundreds of years.
Frenchman Pierre La Verendrye and his voyageurs land at Grand Portage to begin a fur-trading expedition into the region west of the Great Lakes. La Verendrye eventually establishes a trading post, Fort St. Charles, on Lake of the Woods.
The Stillwater Convention petitions Congress to establish the Territory of Minnesota. Wisconsin's recent admission into the Union meant that settlers in the area between the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers were without a government. Minnesota Territory would be officially recognized on March 3, 1849.
On Women's Equality Day, the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial is dedicated at the state capitol. Titled "Garden of Time: Landscape of Change," the memorial is planted with native grasses and flowers and features a 100-foot trellis imprinted with the names of important suffrage leaders in the state's history.
The one-day "Cornstalk War" occurs between a group of six Ojibwe and the St. Paul Light Cavalry Company, which had been summoned after reports of thefts. Each side loses one man after exchanging shots in a cornfield near Sunrise.
Jacob A. O. Preus is born in Wisconsin. Founder of the Lutheran Brotherhood fraternal society, he would serve as state governor from 1921 to 1925. He died on May 24, 1961.
Lake City's Ralph Samuelson, the "father of water-skiing," dies. In 1922 Samuelson had successfully tested water skis on Lake Pepin, having fashioned the skis by boiling and curving the tips of boards purchased at a local lumberyard.