Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, reaching the mouth of the Mni Sota Wakpa (Minnesota River), stops at Wita Tanka (later called Pike Island after him) and raises the Stars and Stripes inside present-day Minnesota for the first time.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt is the keynote speaker at the first meeting of the Women's Institute in St. Paul.

At the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia, the Second Minnesota is one of the few Union units on hand to repel a fierce Confederate attack. Casualties claim one-third of the regiment, with forty-five dead, 103 wounded, and fourteen captured out of the 382 engaged in battle.

Fictional television character Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis and throws her hat into the air as the popular Mary Tyler Moore Show begins its run.

Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte, Frenchmen who had made the first east-to-west trans-Atlantic flight, are celebrated at Wold-Chamberlain field in Minneapolis.

Governor Stephen Miller announces that gold has been found near Vermilion Lake, based on a rock collected by state geologist Henry H. Eames. A gold rush begins but comes to nothing, as no sizeable amount of gold is ever found in the area. The exploitation of the rich iron ore of the region would begin twenty years later.

Gaslights illuminate the streets of St. Paul for the first time.

Al (Albert H.) Quie is born near Dennison in Rice County. Beginning in 1958, he represented Minnesota in Congress for ten consecutive terms, during which he advocated legislative bills relating to education, agriculture, anti-poverty, and labor issues. In 1979 he was elected governor as an Independent Republican.

Captain Seth Eastman becomes commander of Fort Snelling for a second time.

St. Cloud State Teachers College, Minnesota's third such institution, opens in a remodeled hotel, the former Stearns House.