Jackpot Junction Casino, run by the Mdewakanton Dakota on the Lower Sioux Reservation in Morton, celebrates its eighth anniversary (November 16–18). It is the first Native American casino in Minnesota. Originally a bingo parlor, by 1988 it had become a fully operational casino.

Winfield Scott Hammond is born in Southborough, Massachusetts. Prior to becoming the state's eighteenth governor, he would function in various educational capacities: as high school principal in Mankato, superintendent of schools in Madelia, and president of the school board of St. James. He died on December 30, 1915, the second governor to die while in office.

US Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler dies in Washington, DC. Born near Northfield, Minnesota, on March 17, 1866, Butler was a conservative judge who opposed many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Butler was the final justice to pass the bar exam after studying with an attorney rather than attending a law school. He served as lawyer for Ramsey County and as regent for the University of Minnesota before President Warren G. Harding appointed him to the high court in 1922.

Pilgrim Baptist Church is formally organized. The African American congregation, granted mission status by the First Baptist Church of St. Paul, met at various residences for a number of years before constructing a church at Thirteenth and Cedar Streets in St. Paul. Robert Hickman was ordained eleven years later and became the congregation's official pastor.

The state's first book-quality paper, manufactured at the Cutter and Secombe paper mill in St. Anthony, is used in the Minnesota Farmer and Gardener, an agricultural magazine.

Novelist Ernest Hemingway is admitted to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, where he undergoes shock treatment for depression. A few days later, he commits suicide in Idaho.

Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, creator of "Peanuts," is born in Minneapolis.

As photographer Charles Zimmerman of St. Paul tries to capture frozen Minnehaha Falls, he is struck by an icicle weighing several hundred pounds. He sustains severe bruises about the head, neck, and shoulders, but none of his bones is broken.

The first election for Minnesota county offices is held.

In the first organized teachers' strike in the nation, 1,165 St. Paul schoolteachers walk out. The strike lasts until December 27 and receives national attention, as it demonstrates that teachers are ready to use strikes as a method to alleviate school funding problems and intolerable working conditions.