Lawrence Taliaferro, the wealthy scion of a politically connected, slave-owning Virginia family, was the US government’s main agent to the Native people of the upper Mississippi in the 1820s and 1830s. He earned the trust of Dakota, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Menominee, Sauk (Sac), and Meskwaki (Fox) leaders through lavish gifts, intermarriage, and his zeal for battling predatory fur traders. In a series of treaties, he persuaded these leaders to cede tracts of land in exchange for promises that the government would later break.

Walter Hoover was a competitive rower and rowing coach from Duluth who became world famous by winning the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1922. The annual event, held in England, was the world championship for single scullers (rowers who propel their boats alone) at the time.

During the Second Indochinese War between communist North Vietnam and US-backed South Vietnam (1955‒1975), the US government escalated American involvement in Southeast Asia. In response, anti-war activists and university students in Minnesota, along with demonstrators across the nation, took to the streets to protest.

Hmong Pages is a St. Paul-based newspaper created by, for, and about Hmong people. To reach a wide audience of individuals, it features articles written in both English and Hmong. The monthly publication seeks to raise awareness about Hmong people throughout the Twin Cities and is distributed across the metro area.

Riverfest, an annual summer celebration in Windom first held in 1957, has its roots in an earlier celebration known as Flax Day. Under each name, the event has thrived and brought together people in the area for fun and festivities.

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.

Early twentieth-century winters in Minnesota were a hardship for the state’s residents―including those of Cottonwood County. Newcomers, hearing stories about the weather, soon learned that the accounts weren't exaggerated. A few storms stand out, but the blizzard of 1936 topped them all.

Between 1933 and 1943, Native Americans worked on their lands as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division, run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). More than 2,000 Native families in Minnesota benefited from the wages as participants developed work skills and communities gained infrastructure like roads and wells.

General Mills did not invent cake mix, but in the early 1950s, Betty Crocker helped make it nationally popular as a staple of the American pantry.

In the mid-twentieth century, Anoka County's Carlos Avery Game Farm helped to build populations of dwindling game bird species, such as the bob white quail, chukar partridge, and ring-necked pheasant. A National Register-listed historic district since 1991, it is now part of the nearly 25,000-acre Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and has become a reserve for deer, waterfowl, and other woodland animals and birds.