President Lyndon B. Johnson bestows the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States, on civil rights activist Roy Wilkins. Wilkins was born in Mississippi but spent most of his life in St. Paul. In 1923 he graduated from the University of Minnesota, where he was the Minnesota Daily's first black reporter and editor. He served as executive director of the NAACP from 1955 to 1977. A postage stamp honoring him was issued in 2001.

A fire destroys the Crosby family home, which had been built at the foot of Montreal Street in St. Paul and is now the site of Crosby Farm Park.

On a theatrical tour, Calamity Jane (Martha Cannary Burk) appears at the Palace Museum in Minneapolis, dressed in the male attire of buckskin jacket and trousers and giving "the people of the eastern cities an opportunity of seeing the Woman Scout who was made so famous through her daring career in the West and Black Hill countries."

Six students attend the opening of the Lake Harriet Mission School for the Dakota, founded by the Reverend Jedediah D. Stevens. The school was sponsored by the Presbyterian Missions Board and taught by the founder's niece, Lucy C. Stevens, in a cabin built by Gideon H. and Samuel W. Pond.

Frank Hibbing arrives in St. Louis County to test for a mine at the site that would eventually bear his name.

Boxing great John L. Sullivan breaks his arm in the first round of a fight with Patsey Cardiff in Minneapolis, but the bout continues for five more rounds before a tie is called.

Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois, introduces a bill to organize Minnesota Territory.

The Winona Daily News announces that thirty-six chinchillas, along with feed, cages, and other supplies, have been donated by a student and his father to the biology department of St. Mary's College, to be used in research on improving the breed, whose fur is often made into expensive coats for women.

Willmar Village is incorporated. Platted (surveyed and mapped) in 1869, the township was named for Leon Willmar, a Belgian agent for European investors in the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company. Willmar would become a city in 1901.

James M. Goodhue, editor of the Minnesota Pioneer, brawls in the street with Joseph Cooper, brother of territorial judge David Cooper. Cooper is upset because Goodhue printed a libelous column about his brother, which included the phrases "He is . . . a miserable drunkard . . . stuffed with arrogance, self conceit, and a ridiculous affectation of dignity." Goodhue is stabbed and Cooper shot during the fracas, but both survive.