Maud Hart Lovelace is born in Mankato. She is remembered as the author of the Betsy-Tacy books, a series of stories for young readers set in early twentieth-century Mankato. In 1979, the Mankato Friends of the Library Association established the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award for children's books.

The North Stars professional hockey team plays its final game in the Met Center against the Chicago Blackhawks, losing 3-2. The team moves to Dallas later that year.

Rod Carew plays his first major league baseball game with the Minnesota Twins, hitting a single.

The US Army officially occupies Fort Gaines, later renamed Fort Ripley. The post had been built to monitor the Ho-Chunk people (Winnebago) at Long Prairie, and to negotiate with nearby Ojibwe and Dakota bands.

Former governor Harold LeVander dies at age eighty-two. Born in Swede Home, Nebraska, LeVander served as governor from 1967 to 1971. During that time he led in the establishment of Minnesota's first state human rights department, a pollution control agency, and the Metropolitan Council for the Twin Cities area. LeVander also opposed establishing a state sales tax, but his veto was twice overridden.

Prominent Minneapolis industrialist Lewis S. Gillette dies at his winter home near Natchez, Mississippi.

In the Metrodome's first regular-season baseball game, the Minnesota Twins lose to the Seattle Mariners, 11-7.

The ore boat C. L. Austin picks up the first load of taconite at Silver Bay.

The first known baptism in the upper Mississippi River occurs in St. Paul. Schoolteacher Harriet E. Bishop had written the Baptist Home Missionary Society requesting a preacher, and the Reverend J. P. Parsons arrived in May 1849. The First Baptist Church was organized soon after, holding meetings in the schoolhouse on Jackson Street.

John Jacob Astor forms the American Fur Company, headquartered in New York City. It operates fur-trading posts on the Rainy River, at Grand Portage, and at Grand Marais, as well as on Moose, Basswood, Vermillion, and Little Vermillion Lakes. The company would exist until 1842.