Jean-Baptiste Faribault is born in Quebec. The fur trader and pioneer would live in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as these territories became states. In Minnesota he would reside in Little Rapids (Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe), on Pike Island (Wita Tanka), and in Mendota. He died in 1860. The Minnesota county honors his name, while the city commemorates his son, Alexander.

The territorial legislature creates the original nine counties of Minnesota. Benton County is named for Thomas Hart Benton, a senator from Missouri who promoted settler colonialism; Dakota is for the Dakota people; Itasca for the headwaters of the Mississippi River; Ramsey for the new territory's governor; Wabasha for multiple Dakota leaders; and Washington for our nation's first president.

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.

George Liscomb and Alexander Campbell, fur traders from Mankato, are lynched in New Ulm after they kill a town citizen, John Spinner, in a bar fight upon being ejected from the Hauenstein Saloon. The following day, 300 angry Mankato residents, along with a company of militia, marched to New Ulm to investigate the lynching. They found Liscomb's and Campbell's mutilated bodies stuffed under the ice of the Minnesota River. An investigation quickly named members of the mob, leading to indictments.

The first US flag in St. Paul is raised on a pole in front of Richard Mortimer's house. Born in England, Mortimer had served successively in both the British and American armies and been a commissary and quartermaster sergeant at Fort Snelling before settling in upper St. Paul. The flag flies briefly and then is cut down by "some wicked scamp" from the lower—and rival—part of town.

Meeker County is created. It is named for Bradley B. Meeker, one of the first three judges to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Joseph R. Brown's steam wagon, a horseless carriage that debuted in Henderson on July 4, is permanently mired near Three Mile Creek en route to Fort Ridgely. Brown would build another tractor in 1862, but he died before perfecting it.

Minnesota senator Eugene J. McCarthy announces he will challenge President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination for president. The University of Minnesota Young Democrats chapter becomes the first in the nation to back McCarthy, who despite early successes does not earn his party's nod.

Dave Winfield is born in St. Paul. He may be the most versatile athlete the state has produced. Based on his performance at the University of Minnesota, professional teams in three different sports basketball, football, and baseball would draft him. His choice would be baseball and he would play for several teams, including the Twins, accumulating twelve all-star game appearances, 3,110 career hits, and 465 home runs. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.

Watson's Colored Chorus, an African American musical group with 250 singers from Minneapolis and St. Paul, gives a concert featuring "Choruses, Glees, Banjo, Guitar and Vocal Solos, Jubilees and Plantation Songs" at Minneapolis's Lyceum Theater. The best reserved seats cost fifty cents apiece.