In 1932, singer Bing Crosby had a major hit with his recording of E. Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney's song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" Its lyrics could have been the story of Wilbur B. Foshay: "Once I built a tower up to the sun/ brick and rivet and lime/ Once I built a tower, now it's done/ Brother, can you spare a dime?" Foshay built a fortune, built a tower in Minneapolis—and then lost it all in the stock market crash of 1929.

Since 1929, the Foshay Tower has been a vital part of the Minneapolis skyline. When it was built, the thirty-two-story tower was the tallest building between Chicago and the West Coast. In the 1970s and 1980s, much taller skyscrapers were built, but the attractive Foshay Tower remained a crowning glory of Minnesota architecture.

Two young men from Cleveland, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, created the character of Superman in the 1930s. But it was Curt Swan, a Minnesota artist, who defined Superman's look in comic books of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

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.

Dr. C. Walton Lillehei was a world-famous professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota and an innovator in the field of open-heart surgery. He participated in the world's first successful open-heart operation, developed techniques and devices that made open-heart surgery more successful, and pioneered the use of pacemakers and artificial heart valves.

By 1910, some of St. Paul's Eastern European Jews had moved from their original immigrant neighborhoods in Lowertown and the West Side to the Cathedral Hill district. A group of Orthodox men met that year to discuss creating a new congregation there. It would conserve traditional Jewish practices, but modernize them to appeal to the next generation.

B'nai Abraham Congregation grew out of the Romanian Jewish community that developed in South Minneapolis in the 1880s. The congregation prospered until the neighborhood's Jewish population shrank after World War II. A move to St. Louis Park in the early 1950s rejuvenated membership, and B'nai Abraham merged with Mikro-Tifereth in 1972, creating a new congregation: B'nai Emet.

Known for being the oldest Conservative congregation west of Chicago, Adath Jeshurun has been a mainstay of the Twin Cities Jewish community for well over a century. Though rooted in South Minneapolis, the congregation moved to Minnetonka in 1995 to accommodate its growing membership.

A prime example of entrepreneurial spirit, Susie Schmitt Hanson was a pioneer for Minnesota women in business. As the owner of one of Waconia's longest-running businesses, she remains a prominent figure in the history of that town.

Carver County made its mark on aviation history thanks to local aviation pioneer Elmer Sell. Owner of the first airplane in Carver County, Sell founded Sell Airfield and had a flying career spanning four decades.