The Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment played an important role in defending its home state as well as in operations in the South. Its three years of service for the Union culminated in the Battle of Nashville, in which its members fought side by side with men from three other Minnesota regiments.

General Lauris Norstad helped engineer World War II victories for American air forces in Africa, Europe and Asia from 1942 to 1945. As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1956 to 1963, he faced an even more dangerous challenge—the very real threat of nuclear holocaust.

From 1615 until 1821, Lake Superior was known as "the Great Crossroads" of the western fur trade. The north shore of the lake harbored the major water routes to the western interior of North America. The British inherited the Lake Superior region from the French after the French and Indian War. In the later decades of the eighteenth century, the British North West Company controlled the Lake Superior fur trade. The North West Company was founded in 1779 by Scottish businessmen in Montreal.

Organized at Fort Snelling in the fall of 1861, the Third Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment was unique. The third-largest Minnesota infantry unit, it had the most men die of disease (239) and the third-highest number of deserters (most of them prisoners of war who returned to service by 1863). It also had the most men promoted as officers into United States Colored Troop units (eighty-two), making it one of the top ten sources of USCT officers. Noted for their discipline and hardiness, the men of the Third twice repulsed cavalry charges while in line of battle rather than in a bayonet-armed square formation.