A bicycle built for thirteen―requiring twelve people to peddle and one person to steer―tours St. Paul at the height of the 1890s bicycling craze.

Alexander Ramsey, who had served as governor during the Civil War, sets the cornerstone of the third state capitol building. Designed by Cass Gilbert, the capitol is a memorial to Minnesota's Civil War soldiers.

John A. Johnson, Minnesota's first homegrown governor, is born in St. Peter. A Horatio Alger success story, Johnson overcame poverty to become editor of the St. Peter Herald. A popular figure statewide, he was elected governor in 1905, and his oratorical skills attracted nationwide attention. He died in office on September 21, 1909, cutting short plans to make him the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 1912.

Missionary Stephen R. Riggs and a group of Dakota at the Upper Sioux Agency in Yellow Medicine County form the "Hazelwood Republic," a system of self-government. The republic has a president, secretary, and judges, and its members saved lives during the US–Dakota War of 1862.

Beardsley sets a state record for high temperature: 114 degrees. Moorhead equaled it on July 6, 1936.

Dakota and Ojibwe warriors engage in two battles: one in present-day Stillwater in an area called Battle Hollow, the other at the mouth of the Rum River in Anoka. The Dakota attacks kill about 100 Ojibwe people, and during the next month the Dakota hold celebratory dances at Bde Maka Ska.

Minnesota's first railroad fatality: a train strikes a wagon driven by Captain Abraham Bennett at the Como Road crossing in St. Paul. There had been talk of building a bridge at the site, but, ironically, Bennett himself had opposed it.

Charles Haralson dies in Excelsior at the age of seventy-eight. The first resident superintendent of the University of Minnesota's Fruit Breeding Farm (now the Horticultural Research Center) at Excelsior, the Swedish-born Haralson served as superintendent from 1908 to 1925, an especially creative period during which several outstanding hardy trees and fruits were developed and introduced, including his namesake Haralson apple (1922), a tart, long-keeping, winter variety that remains popular with both home and commercial growers.

Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike receives orders to seek the headwaters of the Mississippi River and to find a location for a fort somewhere on the upper reaches of the river. Pike did not locate the source of the river, but he did choose a site for what became Fort Snelling.

A mob threatens State Attorney General Charles Berry and frees Aymer Moore from the Rockford jail. Moore had led the mob that lynched suspected murderer Oscar Jackson earlier that year (see April 3). Learning that Moore had been freed and Berry threatened, Governor Henry H. Sibley declares Wright County to be in a state of insurrection and calls out three companies of militia to establish order and begin an investigation. He recalls the troops only when three members of the mob, including Moore, are turned over.

Amherst Wilder signs his will, donating $2.5 million to help the needy in St. Paul. Born July 7, 1828, in Lewis, New York, Wilder moved to St. Paul in 1859 and soon found his fortune in various business ventures, including railroads, steamers, banks, real estate, and merchandising. He died November 11, 1894.