St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church, Bramble

A sanctuary for Russian immigrants in Koochiching County

St. Peter and St. Paul Russian Orthodox Church, Bramble

1975 Minneapolis Non-Discrimination Ordinance

Civil rights protection that was the first of its kind in the US

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Flooding of the Red River, 1997

The eighth-costliest flood in US history

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Frontenac State Park

A dramatic landscape 500 million years in the making

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Flour City Ornamental Iron Works Strike, 1935

A conflict between workers and police that led to two deaths

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Ulrich, Mabel S. (1876–1945)

From sex education to the Federal Writers' Project

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Washburn A Mill

The birthplace of one of the biggest modern food companies in the world

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Pardon Power in Nineteenth-Century Minnesota

An era of unprecedented clemency via executive power

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Recently Added Articles

“Christmas Eve on the Flats”
Creator: Alex Magnolia
First Published: August 14, 2025
From the 1860s to 1931, thousands of people built homes on the west bank of the Mississippi River as it wends through Minneapolis, just south of St. Anthony Falls. The diverse immigrant ...
Reverend Moses Dickson
Creator: Karen Sieber
First Published: August 08, 2025
On March 24, 1857, abolitionist and St. Paul resident Moses Dickson wrote a scathing open letter to the Minnesota Weekly Times about freedom, democracy, and citizenship for Black Americans. ...

This Day in Minnesota History (August 21)

1833

The Reverend William T. Boutwell leaves La Pointe, Wisconsin, to begin his mission to the Pillager Ojibwe at Leech Lake.

1860

A group of abolitionists in Minneapolis persuades Judge Charles E. Vanderburgh to issue a writ of habeas corpus or an order to bring to court Eliza Winston, an enslaved woman of a visiting southern family. Vanderburgh then declares her to be free, as she is living in a free state. Her freedom provides a boost to the antislavery cause at the same time that it discourages Southerners from traveling to Minnesota, much to the dismay of the state's tourism industry.

1883

A tornado sweeps through Dodge County, killing five, and then lands in Rochester, killing thirty-one. Mother Alfred Moes and the Sisters of St. Francis convert their school into an emergency hospital, with Dr. William Mayo supervising. Realizing the need for a permanent hospital in the city, Moes establishes St. Mary's Hospital on October 1, 1889. This facility would evolve into the Mayo Clinic.

1893

A tornado strikes the city of Rochester and Olmsted County, killing thirty-eight people in fifteen minutes. The force of the winds is enough to drive a picket through a spruce tree and to pick up boxcars full of flour before gently setting them back down on the track.

1965

The Beatles perform at Metropolitan Stadium to an estimated crowd of 4,000 teenagers, mostly young women, turning the event into what one writer described as "Shrieksville, USA." With the continued popularity of Beatles's recordings long after their breakup in 1970, the irony of early panning is shown in sharp relief by a Pioneer Press comment on the performance: "The Twin Cities was visited Saturday by some strange citizens from another world. They wore long hair and wide grins and were easily identified as Ringo Starr, John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. They were the Beatles—alleged musicians."

1995

Robert Blaeser (White Earth Ojibwe), co-founder of the Native American Bar Association, is sworn in as the Twin Cities' first judge of Native American descent.

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