Governor Orville L. Freeman announces that Minnesota will crack down on "drinking drivers," urging sheriffs in the state to resist local pressures to reduce drunk driving charges to charges of careless driving.

W. E."Pussyfoot" Johnson, who had the authority to enforce federal liquor laws on Native American reservations, leads a raid on the saloons of Park Rapids, which were illegally serving residents of the White Earth Reservation of Ojibwe (considered wards of the state and protected by an 1855 treaty). Johnson and a trainload of US marshals gather all the bottles they can find and demolish them on Main Street.

The Minnesota Library Association is organized in St. Paul. Professor William W. Folwell, the librarian of the University of Minnesota, is elected president of this first state library association, and other members of "that useful profession" fill the offices of vice president (Helen J. McCaine of the St. Paul Public Library) and secretary and treasurer (J. Fletcher Williams of the Minnesota Historical Society).

Fur trader Alexander Baker receives a patent on a land claim near International Falls.

Legendary sports broadcaster Halsey Hall dies in his Minneapolis home at age seventy-nine. Known for his cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking style, Hall was a broadcaster of Minnesota Twins games for many years and the first to use the phrase "holy cow" during a broadcast. He also coined the adjective "golden" to describe the University of Minnesota's sports teams.

University of Minnesota president James L. Morrill announces that the university will expand westward across the Washington Avenue Bridge into a "blighted area" of Minneapolis. A key part of the plan is a new two-deck bridge.

The local telegraph office opens in St. Anthony (now northeast Minneapolis), following the St. Paul and Minneapolis offices in linking Minnesota cities to the rest of the world by means of electric wire strung on poles.

The Ramsey County Courthouse reopens after the completion of a $48 million renovation project. The art-deco building, which was built in 1932, features twenty different types of marble, murals by John Norton, and a gold leaf ceiling.

Lincoln County, named for the Civil War president, is created, having been established by the legislature on March 6 and approved by vote of the people in November. Three previous attempts to rename or carve out a county in honor of Lincoln had failed to garner the requisite popular vote.

Richard W. Sears is born in Stewartville, Minnesota. While a railroad freight agent in Redwood Falls, he bought an unclaimed shipment of watches and sold them through the mail at bargain prices. From this mail-order idea developed the A. C. Roebuck and Company, housed on the seventh floor of the Globe Building in Minneapolis. Renamed Sears, Roebuck and Co., the business was eventually headquartered in Chicago.

Outside of Pearl Harbor, the destroyer Ward, its crew primarily reservists from St. Paul, attacks and sinks a Japanese midget submarine, the first shots fired on the date of infamy. Inside the harbor, Minneapolis-born Captain Franklin van Valkenburgh is killed on the bridge of his ship, the USS Arizona. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor by Congress.