Founded in 1874, Macalester College began as a Presbyterian college with few resources and only six students. The private liberal arts college became known for its rigorous academics and commitment to internationalism, multiculturalism, and service to society.

David Madson was a Minneapolis-based architect who worked for a retail marketing firm while attending the University of Minnesota to complete his master’s degree in architecture. He designed an AIDS memorial in the mid-1990s, when few memorials for the disease existed and the epidemic was at its height. He was involved in the local queer and leather communities, frequented gay bars, and attended HIV/AIDS fundraisers. Madson is widely known as the second victim of spree killer Andrew Cunanan, who murdered him in Chisago County, Minnesota, in 1997.

In 1904, Charles W. Malchow was a professor of medicine at Hamline University Medical School who had studied abroad in Germany and England. He had a happy marriage, a medical practice in downtown Minneapolis, and a house near Lake of the Isles. He was young, handsome, successful, and ambitious. Then he went to prison.

In August 1872, Julia Sears (1839–1929) was hired to head the Mankato State Normal School. Upon taking the job, she became the first woman to hold such a position of power in a coeducational institution of higher learning in the United States. Her leadership challenged traditional gender roles at teachers’ colleges but led to controversy when the local school board replaced her with a man.

Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) between 1934 and 1935, the Marcell Ranger Station exemplifies the core principles of the National Park Service's architectural philosophy: minimalist construction and use of native materials.

Minneapolis is approved for a town government by the territorial legislature (it became a city ten years later). The legislature also forms three counties: Lake County, named for Lake Superior; McLeod County, named for Martin McLeod, a fur trader and member of the territorial legislature; and Pine County, named for the extensive pine forests of the region or perhaps for the Pine River and Pine Lakes.

The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, authored by Thorstein Veblen, is published. A graduate of Carleton College, Veblen earned recognition as a dynamic economist and social theorist, and his book remains influential in the twenty-first century.

"Runaway Train" by the Minneapolis band Soul Asylum wins a Grammy for best rock song.

Inventor and businessman Marshall B. Lloyd is born in St. Paul. He was involved in many ventures in Canada and the Dakotas in the late 1800s before moving to Minneapolis in 1900. Once there, he invented machines that wove wire into doormats and, later, the woven-wire bedspring mattress. After becoming the head of the Lloyd Manufacturing Company moved to Menominee, Michigan, and invented a wicker-weaving machine that was thirty times faster than hand-weaving.

The troops of the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment occupy the town of Berryville, Virginia, where they find the print run of the local paper half completed. Members of the company print their own four-page edition, which contains humorous news about the army and the war. Copies of this paper are rare and valued Civil War memorabilia.

Wanda Gág is born in New Ulm. An author and artist, she wrote and illustrated the children's classic Millions of Cats.