Charles Thompson Memorial Hall is opened at 1824 Marshall Avenue in St. Paul with a formal dedication ceremony. It is the first clubhouse for the deaf in the world and is later listed on the National Register of Historic Places (2011).
As hundreds gather in Mankato to commemorate the Dakota who were executed there, eagles gather in the sky above them. Many interpret this as a sign of healing between the Dakota nation and the United States.
Choua Lee is elected to the St. Paul City School Board, the first Hmong person elected to a public position in the United States. After serving one term she declined reelection.
Satveer S. Chaudhary is elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, making him the first known Indian American to serve in the state legislature. He later served as a state senator, from 2001 to 2011.
Norm Coleman is elected US Senator, defeating Walter Mondale by 2 percentage points. Mondale is a replacement candidate for Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash on October 25, 2002.
On the same day that Minnesota votes for Abraham Lincoln for president, a horse race in Freeborn County determines the county seat. Albert Lea and Itasca had both been vying for the honor, and corruption and vote buying ran rampant. Adding to the excitement, an Albert Lea racehorse, Old Tom, had been put up to run a race against Itasca's best. The businessmen of Itasca had secretly bought an Iowa racehorse named Fly, the plan being to encourage Albert Lea's folks to bet on Old Tom, win their money, and then buy votes for Itasca.
Edwina Garcia is elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, becoming the first Latina woman to serve in the state legislature. She serves for four terms in total, from 1991 to 1999.
Horace Austin, sixth governor of Minnesota, dies in Minneapolis. He was born on October 15, 1831, in Canterbury, Connecticut. After serving as judge in Minnesota's sixth district, he won the governor's seat over Democrat George L. Otis in 1869. As governor, Austin established a state board of health, divided the state into three Congressional districts, and initiated a geological and natural history survey supervised by the state university.
The Kensington Runestone is discovered on Olof Ohman's farm, near Alexandria. The stone tells of a group of Vikings who traveled to Minnesota in 1362, but its authenticity has long been the subject of debate.
Minnesota citizens are allowed to vote for all nine of the state's congressional seats because the legislature had failed to reapportion the districts following the census of 1930.
Ilhan Omar is elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. A Somali immigrant to Minnesota, she is the first Somali American and Muslim woman to serve in the state legislature. In 2018, she became the first Somali American elected to the United States Congress.
In the aftermath of the US‒Dakota War, a mob of settler colonists attacks a group of Dakota captives in New Ulm. The troops guarding the captives manage to restore order. Five days later, in Henderson, settler colonists attack Dakota captives being marched to Fort Snelling. They kill one Dakota infant before soldiers disperse the crowd.
Two members of Alcoholics Anonymous visit Minnesota to watch a football game and to contact people who have asked for help with their drinking problems. They connect with one, B. Patrick Cronin, who later dated his sobriety to November 11, 1940, and helped start more than 450 AA groups in the Midwest.
Spanning a narrow stretch of the Mississippi River in Bemidji, the Nymore Bridge is a notable example of early-twentieth-century construction. Completed in 1917, it owes its success to innovative engineering, attractive design, and local funding. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The O'Connor layover agreement was instituted by John O'Connor shortly after his promotion from St. Paul detective to chief of police on June 11, 1900. It allowed criminals to stay in the city under three conditions: that they checked in with police upon their arrival; agreed to pay bribes to city officials; and committed no major crimes in the city of St. Paul. This arrangement lasted for almost forty years, ending when rampant corruption forced crusading local citizens and the federal government to step in.
