William Windom is born in Belmont City, Ohio. After settling in Winona in 1855, Windom represented Minnesota in the US Congress as both a congressman and a senator. He later served as secretary of the treasury under Presidents James A. Garfield and Benjamin Harrison. His likeness appears on the 1891 two-dollar bill, and Windom in Cottonwood County is named for him. He died in 1891.

The Virginia is the first steamboat to reach Fort St. Anthony (later Fort Snelling), having made the 729-mile-trip from St. Louis in twenty days. Among the Virginia's passengers is Italian adventurer Giacomo C. Beltrami.

Soldiers expel Selkirker squatters from the Fort Snelling military reservation and burn their cabins. Although the Selkirkers had moved to escape the fort's boundaries the year before, a new survey showed that they remained within the military's jurisdiction. The settlers then relocated to the site that later became the city of St. Paul.

Two Presbyterian missionaries from Connecticut, Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, arrive at Fort Snelling and soon begin working with the Dakota on the shores of Bde Maka Ska. The Pond brothers developed a Dakota alphabet, published a Dakota newspaper, and recorded traditional Dakota practices during their years as missionaries.

Minneapolis architect Leroy S. Buffington, the "Father of the Skyscraper," patents a construction method involving a steel skeleton that allows structures to be built to any height.

Forestville State Park is formally dedicated, having been open to the public since 1968.

In Metropolitan Stadium's first sellout game, the Minnesota Twins lose a doubleheader to Cleveland before a crowd of 30,999.

During the Minneapolis teamsters' strike, violence erupts between picketers blocking trucks driven by non-unionists and an army hired by the Citizens Alliance, a union of local employers. Thirty Minneapolis policemen and a number of army deputies are hospitalized after the brawl.

Mark Twain visits St. Paul while compiling research for his book Life on the Mississippi, which he publishes the following year.

Little Falls native Charles A. Lindbergh begins his famous trans-Atlantic flight to Paris, which takes thirty-three and one-half hours.