Governor Clyde Elmer Anderson signs a bill establishing the red pine (Pinus resinosa), commonly known as the Norway pine, as the Minnesota state tree.

An act signed by Congress sets aside 48,080 acres to support a state university, and the University of Minnesota is first incorporated six days later.

Knute Nelson is born in Evanger in the Voss district of western Norway. He moved to Alexandria, Minnesota, in 1871, and from 1893 to 1895 he held the state's highest office, serving as the first Scandinavian-born governor in US history. After this stint as governor, Nelson served in the US Senate, where he wrote the bills creating the departments of commerce and labor. He died on April 28, 1923.

In an important act of historical preservation, the Daughters of the American Revolution buy the Henry H. Sibley House in Mendota and convert it into a museum, which they maintain for over eighty years before transferring the title to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Residents of the small Vermilion Iron Range town of Tower shiver as the thermometer drops to sixty below zero, Minnesota's lowest recorded temperature to date.

The territorial legislature creates twelve counties, all named in honor of individuals who played a significant role in the state's history. Brown is named for pioneer Joseph R.

Minnesota gets its taste of the nationwide savings and loan debacle when Hal Greenwood, Jr., former chairman and CEO of the failed Midwest Federal Savings and Loan Association, is sentenced by a federal judge in St. Paul to forty-six months in prison and ordered to forfeit $3.6 million. Following federal deregulation of the thrift industry during the 1980s, savings and loans around the country had become over-extended, and many engaged in loans without sufficient reserves to cover themselves if the loans failed. Greenwood was one of the few savings and loan officials to be sentenced.

Three Minnesota National Guardsmen—David Day of St. Louis Park, Jesse Lhotka of Appleton, and Jason Timmerman of Tracy—are killed in Iraq, marking the deadliest day for Minnesota soldiers since Vietnam. Sergeant Lhotka is credited with saving a fellow guardsman's life and helping evacuate another soldier before being killed by the roadside blast.

The US women's hockey team, featuring eight Minnesotans, wins the first US Olympic gold medal in that sport in twenty years, beating Canada 3–2 at the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Minnesota celebrates George Washington's birthday as a legal holiday for the first time.

Winona County is established. It is named for a Dakota woman—a relative of the Mdewakanton leader Wabasha. Winona means "first-born daughter" in the Dakota language.

Meeker County is created. It is named for Bradley B. Meeker, one of the first three judges to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court.