The Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House (later renamed the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center), named for the eighteenth-century poet, opens in north Minneapolis. The oldest African American agency in the Twin Cities, the center first serves as a place where young people meet for recreation and skill development and later provides a home-away-from-home for civic leaders, educators, entertainers, and students.
Rochester declares an air pollution alert and earns the dubious distinction of having the highest carbon monoxide levels recorded in the state. This and other alerts in the state during the early 1970s were caused by stagnant weather systems that did not blow away industrial and automobile emissions.
Land in central Minnesota is set aside for the Mamaceqtaw (Menominee). The tribe decides not to move from their holdings in Wisconsin and cedes the proposed reservation to the state on May 5, 1854.
At St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Duluth, an organizational meeting is held to establish a new hospital in the city. Named for today's feast of St. Luke, the hospital is set up in an old blacksmith's shop, and the first patient is admitted on November 18.
The Agriculture School of the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus, which was known as University Farm, opens with forty-seven students and W. W. Pendergast as principal.
The northern boundary of the United States is set at the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, extending from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
The movie Mallrats opens. Filmed at the Eden Prairie mall and directed by independent film sensation Kevin Smith, the movie flops in theaters but develops a cult following.
Minnesota residents Jeannette and Jean Piccard ascend in a hydrogen balloon to a record 57,579 feet. Jeanette made a total of six trips into the stratosphere and later served as a consultant for NASA.
James H. Burrell becomes the first African American member of the St. Paul police force, and the first documented African American police officer in Minnesota.
Charles Evans Hughes, secretary of state and future Supreme Court justice, gives a speech in which he praises President Calvin Coolidge, blasts third-party politics, and condemns corrupt politicians, in front of a crowd of 10,000 in St. Paul.
Novelist Anne Tyler is born in Minneapolis. She published many popular books, including The Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons, for which she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1989.
Meng Kruy Ung, founder of the first Cambodian refugee center in Minnesota, dies. Born in Prey Veng, Cambodia, Ung immigrated to the United States in 1984 and later established the Refugee and Immigrant Resource Center in Farmington. In 1993 the center merged with the Khmer Association of Minnesota to form the United Cambodian Association of Minnesota, offering cultural, legal, and employment services to refugees and immigrants.
While running for a third term in office, United States Senator for Minnesota Paul Wellstone dies in a plane crash with his wife and daughter. He was elected to the Senate in 1990 as a liberal Democrat. After his death, his surviving sons and former campaign manager created the Wellstone Action progressive advocacy organization.
Edward Calvin Kendall and Philip Showalter Hench, Mayo Clinic doctors, and Tadeus Reichstein, a Swiss doctor, are awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their development of cortisone.