The winter of 1887-1888 was ferocious and unrelenting. But nothing prepared southwestern Minnesota for the January storm that came to be known as the Children's Blizzard.

The Treaty of Mendota was signed by the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands of Dakota and the US government in 1851. By signing it and the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux the same year, the Dakota transferred ownership of much of their lands to the United States. The two treaties opened millions of acres to white colonization, but for the Dakota, they were a step towards the loss of their homeland and the US–Dakota War of 1862.

The St. Olaf Christmas Festival is an annual music celebration that began in 1912 and has been performed regularly since then by St. Olaf College students. Widely broadcast and telecast, it is regarded as one of the premier choral events in the world.

In 1834, the American Fur Company established a commercial fishing operation on Lake Superior to supplement the company's profits. The financial panic of 1837 doomed the operation and the company declared bankruptcy in 1842. Commercial fishermen did not have a significant presence on Lake Superior again until the Duluth fishing boom in the 1870s.

On September 23, 1862, United States troops, led by Colonel Henry Sibley, defeated Dakota warriors led by Ta Oyate Duta (His Red Nation, also known as Little Crow) Dakota at the Battle of Wood Lake. The battle marked the end of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

The 1987 World Series put the Minnesota Twins on the national map for the first time since their 1970 Western Division title. The Twins met the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals in what was called both the "Riverboat Series" (after the fact that both cities were connected by the Mississippi River) and the "Cinderella Series" (both clubs were considered underdogs in their respective leagues). The Twins went on to win the series, four games to three.

In 1898, four hundred members of the Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry were hospitalized with typhoid after camping at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. U.S. Army surgeons decided the epidemic's source was the public water of Minneapolis.

The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (1851) between the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota and the US government transferred ownership of much of southeastern Minnesota Territory to the United States. Along with the Treaty of Mendota, signed that same year, it opened twenty-four million acres of land to settler-colonists. For the Dakota, these treaties marked another step in a process that increasingly marginalized them and dismissed them from the land that had been—and remains—their home.

In 1962 and 1963, industrial accidents spilled 3.5 million gallons of oil into the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. The oil covered the Mississippi River from St. Paul to Lake Pepin, creating an ecological disaster and a demand to control water pollution.

The Battle of Birch Coulee, fought between September 2 and 3, 1862, was the worst defeat the United States suffered and the Dakotas' most successful engagement during the US–Dakota War of 1862. Over thirty hours, approximately 200 Dakota warriors pinned down a Union force of 150 newly recruited US volunteers, militia, and civilians from the area, holding them until Henry Sibley's main army arrived.