On February 5, 1924, water from Foley Lake flooded the Milford Mine, killing forty-one miners in Minnesota's worst mining disaster. Only seven miners climbed to safety.

State militia soldiers fought many wars against Britain, Mexico, and American Indian nations to take land for the United States. The federal government rewarded them with military land warrants—certificates that could be redeemed for up to 160 acres of U.S. public land. The warrants were quickly sold and then traded on Wall Street to land agents in the country’s western territories. The agents made huge profits from selling and loaning them to struggling farmers. In Minnesota, German immigrants used land warrants to buy Dakota land, start farms, and found the town of New Ulm.

The houses of Milwaukee Avenue were built in the 1880s as high-density homes for immigrant workers. When the Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority (MHRA) planned to demolish the run-down structures in 1970, neighborhood residents successfully organized to preserve the avenue as a historic district.

In 1977, residents of South Minneapolis mobilized to fight the expansion of adult entertainment businesses along Lake Street. In 1983, after years of unsuccessful protest, these activists sought help from nationally known feminist theorists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. MacKinnon and Dworkin wrote a controversial amendment to the city's expansive civil rights ordinance that defined pornography as a violation of women's civil rights.

In September 1903, workers in the Minneapolis flour milling industry coordinated a strike that halted production in fourteen different mills. The striking workers fought for higher wages and an eight-hour day. Though their effort failed, it marked a turning point in the city’s labor history by spurring mill owners and other business leaders to limit unions through the Citizens Alliance, an anti-worker organization.

When the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) opened in 1915 it exhibited 450 pieces of art, most of them on loan. In the twenty-first century it is an encyclopedic art museum, boasting a collection of more than 89,000 objects that spans 20,000 years and six continents; special exhibitions on topics that have ranged from Star Wars to Martin Luther; and a presence in the community that reflects more than a century of local support for the arts.

In 1962, a local real estate developer named Leslie Park and architect Ed Baker built a covered walkway over Marquette Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Park's structure would later be known as a skyway. It was the first link in a system that later spread throughout much of the city's downtown.

In April 1970, Minneapolis public school teachers went on strike to demand higher pay and smaller class sizes. The strike resulted in the passage of the Public Employment Labor Relations Act, granting public employees—including teachers—the right to bargain collectively.

The Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway (MN&S) was a Minnesota short-line railroad that operated between the cities of Crystal and Northfield from 1918 until 1982. It was a profitable bridge line, routing traffic past the crowded freight yards of the Twin Cities onto connecting railroads at Northfield.

The fifty-three-foot-high Minnehaha Falls was purchased by Minneapolis in 1889. It was the centerpiece of a new state park. The falls remain one of the state's most popular attractions for both residents and visitors. Their name is derived from the Dakota words mni for "water" and gaga for "falling" or "curling"—literally "water fall."

Founded at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Minnesota by a small group of gay volunteers, the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) provided education, prevention, and services for HIV-positive people and people with AIDS during the tumultuous early years of the epidemic. Organized on a grassroots level within the communities most affected by the virus, MAP became a model for successful community responses to public health crises. Its activities led directly and indirectly to a huge expansion of services and organizations serving HIV-positive people and people with AIDS in Minnesota and beyond.