Flooding on the Red River in April and May 1997 set twentieth-century records at most locations along the Minnesota–North Dakota border and into Manitoba, Canada. At the time, it was the eighth-costliest flood in US history, causing an estimated $4 billion in damages across a swath of land roughly the size of Delaware.

In 1935, Minneapolis was rocked by radical populist protests as workers responded to the Great Depression, unemployment, and anti-union employers. Industrial unions galvanized discontent and challenged employers, craft unions, and the Farmer-Labor Party. A year after the Teamsters union led combat in the market district of Minneapolis, another union struck eight foundries, including the Flour City Ornamental Iron Works on the city’s south side.

Mabel Simis Ulrich was a public health educator, physician, author, and public figure whose pioneering work in sex education propelled her onto multiple public health commissions in Minneapolis. She contributed to the cultural scene in Minneapolis through a bookstore that she owned, and headed the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) in Minnesota under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s.

Washburn A Mill was one of twenty-six Minneapolis flour mills that lined the Mississippi River below St. Anthony Falls during the city’s industrial heyday. By the early 1900s, its company (Washburn-Crosby) was the leading flour miller in Minnesota. The historic building has had five reincarnations in its more than 150 years: an original mill (1874–1878); a rebuilt second mill (1880–1924); a renovated mill (1924–1965); a warehouse (1965–1990); and a museum operated by the Minnesota Historical Society (2003–present).

The Finnish-language newspaper Uusi Kotimaa (New Homeland) reached readers for more than fifty years, from the 1880s until 1934. For all but five of those years, its headquarters was the town of New York Mills, Minnesota—one of the largest Finnish American immigrant communities in the state. The paper changed its politics multiple times, evolving from a conservative editorial stance in its first decades to an explicitly communist one. By the heyday of the Farmer–Labor Party in the 1920s, it was one of the leading Finnish-language newspapers in the United States.

In 1887, Carrie H. Lippincott was a twenty-seven-year-old New Jersey native with an eighth-grade education. She moved to Minnesota, where she created a mail-order company focused on selling flower seeds to women. Lippincott established herself in her new home by practicing innovative marketing methods and developing what we might call today a personal brand, declaring herself “The Pioneer Seedswoman of America.”

In November 1998 Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler and sometime movie actor, was elected governor of Minnesota after defeating the much better-known and better-financed candidates of the two traditional major parties. He won with the lowest plurality of any Minnesota governor, 37 percent of the vote, on the ticket of the Reform Party, a tiny organization with no track record of victory. His single term was one of controversy, and media reports focused more on his pursuits of money and celebrity than on his policies, which were mostly mainstream.

In the early 1970s, women across Minnesota calling a legal information telephone line told staffers that they were experiencing physical abuse from their partners. In response, a group of St. Paul women formed Women’s Advocates to connect these callers with emergency housing and information. In 1974, the group purchased a St. Paul house and transformed it into a groundbreaking shelter for victim-survivors of domestic violence. In the following decades, Women’s Advocates expanded the shelter, initiated education programs, and advocated for policy changes—all with the goal of breaking the cycle of domestic violence.

About 13,000 years ago the melting glaciers that covered Minnesota and Canada created a vast lake, bigger than all the Great Lakes of today combined. Geologists later named this Lake Agassiz (AH-ga-see), for the Swiss geologist Louis Agassiz. The lake drained twice: first to the south, to form the channel of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi in the Twin Cities, and then, 1,600 years later, to form the course of the Red River of the North.

The Replacements (1979–1991) were an influential Minneapolis-based band that fused punk, rock, country, and blues to capture the teenage angst of the 1980s. Founded by innovative guitarist Bob Stinson, the band also included bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Chris Mars, and dynamic singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg. Known for their electric, erratic live shows, the Replacements attracted a devout fan base. They were foundational pioneers of the alternative rock genre of the late 1980s and the 1990s, most notably the Seattle grunge scene, as well as alternative country.