Timeline Minnesota
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6200BC The glacial lake
Agassiz-Ojibway, body of water so vast that it covered parts of
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Ontario and Minnesota,
massively drained, sending a flow of water into the Hudson Strait
and the Labrador Sea. The sudden flood of fresh water diluted the
saltiness of the Gulf Stream weakening its flow.
(Econ, 9/9/06, Survey p.6)(AFP, 2/24/08)
1362-1363 A 202-pound stone with runic
inscriptions, found in 1888 by Olaf and Edward Ohman, Swedish
immigrant farmers in Kensington, Minn., seemed to describe how a
party of Vikings had returned there after an exploratory survey, and
found ten men left behind "red with blood and dead." Ever since the
discovery, scholars have debated the stone’s authenticity.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.25)(HNQ, 6/4/01)
1766 Jonathan Carver, an
American-born British army officer, set out to cross the American
continent, but was stopped in Minnesota by a war between the Sioux
and Chippewa.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D12)
1767 British explorer Jonathan
Carver described petroglyph images of snakes and buffalo near a cave
at bluffs in Minnesota called Wakan Tipi by the Dakota people.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.23)
1815 Sep 8, Alexander Ramsey
(d.1903), territorial governor of Minnesota (1849-1853), was born
near Harrisburg, Pa.
(www.bioguide.congress.gov)
1823 May 10, The 1st steamboat
to navigate the Mississippi River arrived at Ft. Snelling (between
St. Paul and Minneapolis).
(MC, 5/10/02)
1830 Jul 15, 3 Indian tribes,
Sioux, Sauk & Fox, signed a treaty giving the US most of
Minnesota, Iowa & Missouri.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1832 Jul 13, Henry Schoolcraft
discovered the source of the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft came upon the lake where the Mississippi starts and
intended to call it Veritas Caput, the Latin for “true head.” The
name was too long and got shortened at both ends to Itasca.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.E3)(HN, 7/13/98)
1837 A treaty with the Chippewa
Indians in Minnesota guaranteed their right to hunt and fish and
gather wild rice on territory relinquished to the federal
government.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A8)
1844 Sep 5, Iron ore was
discovered in Minnesota's Mesabi Range.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1849 Mar 3, US Congress created
the Minnesota Territory.
(AP, 3/3/99)
1851 In Minnesota Chief
Shakopee and the Dakota Indians were pressured into selling 24
million acres for pennies an acre. Food and money from the federal
government was to be distributed to the Indians as part of the
treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A1,6)
1854 St. Paul, Minn., was
founded.
(USAT, 3/5/04, p.9A)
1858 May 11, Minnesota became
the 32nd state of the Union.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1861 Jun 29, William James
Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, was born.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1862 Aug 8, Minnesota’s 5th
Infantry fought the Sioux Indians in Redwood, Minn., and 24 soldiers
were killed.
(SFC, 2/7/03, p.A23)
1862 Aug 17, The Sioux
Uprising, which resulted in more than 800 white settlers dead and 38
Sioux Indians condemned and hanged, took place in Minnesota. The
Sioux, or Minnesota, Uprising began when four young Sioux murdered
five white settlers at Acton. The Santee Sioux, who lived on a long,
narrow reservation on the south side of the Minnesota River, were
reacting to broken government promises and corrupt Indian agents. a
military court sentenced 303 Sioux to die, but President Abraham
Lincoln reduced the list. The 38 hangings took place on December 26,
1862, in Mankato, Minn.
(HNQ, 1/4/00)
1862 Aug 22, Santee Sioux
attacked Fort Ridgely, Minn.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1862 Sep 21, 300 Indians were
sentenced to hang in Mankato, Minnesota.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1862 Dec 6, President Lincoln
ordered the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who
participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They were to be
hanged on Dec. 26. The Dakota Indians were going hungry when food
and money from the federal government was not distributed as
promised. They led a massacre that left over 400 white people dead.
The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were sentenced to death.
Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were hanged. The
government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)(HN, 12/6/98)
1862 Dec 26, 38 Santee Sioux
were hanged in Mankato, Minn., for their part in the Sioux Uprising.
(HN, 12/26/98)
1885 Feb 7, Sinclair Lewis
(d.1951), American novelist of satire and realism, was born in Sauk
Centre, Minnesota. His books include "Arrowsmith" and "Elmer
Gantry." "There are two insults which no human will endure: the
assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly
impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble." "Winter is
not a season, it's an occupation."
(AP, 6/26/98)(AP, 12/22/99)(HNQ, 5/18/98)(HN,
2/7/99)
1870 Feb 15, Ground was broken
for Northern Pacific Railway near Duluth, Minn.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1876 Sep 7, The James and
Younger gang botched an attempt to rob the First National Bank of
Northfield, Minn. Joseph Heywood, the bank teller, was shot and
killed when he refused to open the safe. The 3 Younger brothers,
Cole, Bob and Jim, were captured 2 weeks later in a swamp near
Madelia. 3 others were killed. Photos of all 6 were taken at the
time and identified by Cole Younger, who wrote the names on the
pictures. The pictures sold at auction in 1999 for $39,100. The raid
was reenacted in 1948 and became a regular event in 1970.
(HN, 9/7/98)(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 9/6/01,
p.A20)(MT, Summer 02, p.22)
1880-1920 Over 2 billion board feet of white pine
were shipped out of northern Minnesota to build the towns and cities
of a growing America. In 2004 Jeff Forester authored “The Forest for
the Trees: How Humans shaped the North Woods.”
(NH, 10/1/04, p.70)
1883 The Minneapolis Institute
of Arts, originally the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, was
established. The museum building, designed by the firm of McKim,
Mead and White, opened its doors in 1915. In 1974, the
Japanese architect Kenzo Tange was commissioned to design needed
additions to McKim, Mead and White’s neoclassical structure. Now in
the 1990s, with finds from the Institute’s New Beginnings Campaign,
the museum building is being renovated, the collections reinstalled,
and state-of-the-art technology introduces to help visitors and
members interpret the works of art.
(MIA, www, 1999)
1885 Feb 7, Sinclair Lewis,
novelist of satire and realism, was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
His books include "Arrowsmith" and "Elmer Gantry."
(HNQ, 5/18/98)(HN, 2/7/99)
1886 The St. Paul Winter
Carnival began.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T6)
1886 Richard W. Sears began
selling watches in North Redwood, Minn. In 1887 he opened a Chicago
headquarters after hiring watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck. In 1888 the
1st Sears catalog sold watches and jewelry. [see 1893]
(SFC, 11/18/04, p.B1)
1887 Feb 8, Aurora Ski Club of
Red Wing, Minn., became the 1st US ski club.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1888 Olaf and Edward Ohman, a
Swedish immigrant farmer, while digging up tree stumps in
Kensington, came upon a 202-pound stone with runic inscriptions.
Dated to 1363 (1362) the inscriptions seemed to describe how a party
of Vikings had returned to this spot after an exploratory survey,
and found ten men left behind “red with blood and dead.” Ever since
the discovery, scholars have debated the stone’s authenticity.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.25)(HNQ, 6/4/01)
1889 Sep 16, Robert Younger, in
Minnesota's Stillwater Penitentiary for life, died of tuberculosis.
Brothers Cole and Bob remained in that prison.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1889 Nov 12, DeWitt Wallace,
founder of Reader’s Digest (1921), was born in St. Paul, Minn.
(HN, 11/12/00)(MC, 11/12/01)
1891 George A. Hormel, son of
German immigrants, opened a small retail meat shop in Austin, Minn.
Within months he opened a packinghouse. His son Jay became president
in 1929. Their canned ham product, developed in 1926, was named Spam
on Jan 1, 1937, and registered as a trademark on May 11, 1937.
(SFEM, 6/16/96, BR p.26)(WSJ, 4/29/04,
p.D10)(www.hormel.com)
1892 Jun 10, The Republican
National Convention in Minneapolis nominated President Harrison for
re-election and Whitelaw Reid for vice president. (Harrison,
however, lost the election to former President Cleveland.)
(AP, 6/10/97)
1882 The Globe Files Co. was
founded in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1898 it introduced a vertical filing
system.
(SFC, 8/9/06, p.G3)
1893 Otto H.L. Wernicke founded
the Wernicke Furniture Co. in Minneapolis, Minn., to manufacture his
patented elastic bookcases, later known as stackable bookcases. In
1897 he moved the business to Grand Rapids, Mich.
(SFC, 8/9/06, p.G3)
1894 Sep 1, The Great Hinckley
Fire destroyed Hinckley, Minn., and five other communities and
killed over 400 people.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(AP, 9/1/08)
1896 Sep 24, American author F.
Scott Fitzgerald (d.1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He wrote
about the "Jazz Age" between World War I and World War II. He
published his first novel in 1920, "This Side of Paradise," and
gained instant acclaim and celebrity, marrying Zelda Sayre shortly
afterward. In 1924, Fitzgerald wrote what has become his best-known
novel, "The Great Gatsby." Although it was not especially popular at
the time, as more readers began to appreciate the novel for its
perspective of how materialism drives people, it became an American
classic. As years passed, Fitzgerald battled alcoholism and his wife
sought treatment for her mental illness. He died in Hollywood at age
45 in 1940. "If you're strong enough, there are no precedents."
(HFA, ‘96, p.38)(AP, 9/24/97)(HNPD, 9/24/98)(HN,
9/24/98)(AP, 8/16/99)
1896 The Minneapolis Millers
won the Western League baseball pennant. All the stars of the team
were soon drafted by the National League and the following year it
became one of the worst teams in the Western League.
(ON, 6/09, p.10)
1900 Charles Comiskey, manager
of the National League’s Cincinnati Reds, bought the Western
League’s St. Paul team and moved it to Chicago as the White
Stockings.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
1901 Sep. 2, Vice President
Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big
stick," in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.
(AP, 9/2/97)
1902 Feb 4, Charles Lindbergh
(d.1974), the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic (1927), was
born in Detroit and grew up in Minnesota.
(HN,
2/4/99)(www.charleslindbergh.com/history/index.asp)
1902 George Draper Dayton
started a dry goods store in Minneapolis that grew to become the
Dayton Hudson chain. It was renamed Target in 1999. Kenneth Macke
(1938-2008) led Dayton Hudson from 1983 to 1994.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.B7)
1903 Feb 16, At Pokegama,
Minnesota, temperatures fell to a record state low of 59 degrees
below zero.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.D10)
1906 The Red Wing Union
Stoneware Co. began operating in Red Wing, Minnesota. In 1936 it
became Red Wing Potteries, which closed in 1967.
(SFC, 1/2/08, p.G3)
1907 Apr 13, Harold E. Stassen
(d.2001), later 3-term governor, was born on a truck farm in W. St.
Paul.
(SFC, 3/5/01, p.A24)(MC, 4/13/02)
1907 Sep 17, Warren Earl
Burger, the 15th chief justice of the United States (1969-86), was
born in St. Paul, Minn.
(AP, 9/17/07)
1909 Mar 1, 1st US university
school of nursing established, University of Minnesota.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1909-1993 The 1997 novel “Deluge” by Albertine
Strong follows the destinies of the Dibikamig clan of the Chippewa
in Minnesota.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.3)
1910 Nov 22, Amy Elizabeth
Thorpe, a Minnesota-born British spy known as "Cynthia" was born in
Minneapolis. She has been described as World War II's "Mata Hari."
Family and friends called her Betty. William Stephenson, who ran
Great Britain’s World War II intelligence activities in the Western
Hemisphere, would one day give her a code name--"Cynthia." She
reputedly was one of the most successful spies in history.
(HNQ, 3/14/01)
1912 Eric B. Savage
incorporated his M.W. Savage Factories in Minneapolis. His was one
of the first mail-order furniture houses.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.G7)
1913 Jun 18, Robert Mondavi was
born in the mining town of Virginia, Minn. The family moved to
California in 1921 and went into the grape business in Lodi.
(SFC, 6/18/03, p.A16)
1913 Nov 4, Gig Young, actor
(They Shoot Horses Don't They), was born in St. Cloud, Minn.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1913 Industrialist Charles
Gates introduced the 1st residential air-conditioning in his
Minneapolis mansion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R37)
1914 Aug 13, Carl Wickman began
Greyhound, the 1st US bus line, in Minnesota.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1915 Jan 6, John Cunningham
Lilly (d.2001), was born in Saint Paul. He later became a medical
doctor and dolphin and counter culture researcher
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A18)
1916 Mar 29, Eugene McCarthy,
U.S. senator and 1968 presidential candidate, was born in Watkins,
Minn.
(HN, 3/29/01)(MC, 3/29/02)
1918 May 9, Orville Freeman,
(Gov-D-Minn.), Sec of Agriculture (1961-69), was born in
Minneapolis.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1918 Sep 25, John Ireland,
Irish and US archbishop of St Paul, died at 80.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1918 Oct 12, The Cloquet Fire
erupted in Minnesota, claiming some 450 lives.
(AP, 10/12/08)
1918 Oct 13-15, A forest fire
killed some 1,000 people in Minnesota and Wisconsin. [see Oct 12]
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)
1919 Nov 10, The American
Legion held its first national convention, in Minneapolis.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1920 Feb 1, 1st commercial
armored car was introduced in St. Paul, Minn.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1920 Feb 16, Patty Andrews,
vocalist (Andrews Sisters), was born in Minneapolis.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1920 Jun 15, Three African
Americans were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota, by a white mob of
5,000.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1921 Jun 21, Jane Russell
(d.2011), film star, was born in Bemidji, Minn.
(SFC, 3/1/11, p.A7)
1921 The Minneapolis-based
Washburn Crosby (later General Mills), purveyors of Gold Medal
Flour, invented Betty Crocker to serve as a public image food
expert. In 2005 Susan Marks authored “Finding Betty Crocker.”
(WSJ, 12/30/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.W10)
1922 Jun 10, Judy Garland,
singer-actress was born as Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minn.
She starred in The Wizard of Oz and Easter Parade.
(AP, 6/10/97)(HN, 6/10/99)
1922 Jul 31, Ralph Samuelson
(18) rode the world's 1st water skis in Minn.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1923 May 26, James Arness,
actor (Gunsmoke), was born in Minneapolis, MN.
(HN, 5/26/01)(MC, 5/26/02)
1924 In Le Sueur, Minn., The
Green Giant was conceived to promote a new European variety of peas
called "Prince of Wales" for the Minnesota Valley Canning Co. Sales
of Green Giants began in 1925.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.C4)
1928 Jan 5, Walter Mondale,
42nd Vice President (1977-1981) of the U.S., was born. He was the
Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Ronald Reagan in 1984,
and Ambassador to Japan.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1928 Alfred W. Erickson (d.1997
at 90) opened a general store in western Wisconsin that grew to
become one of the largest private companies in Minnesota, Holiday
Cos.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A17)
1930 Dec 29, Fred P. Newton
completed the longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam the
Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minn, to New Orleans.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1930 US Congress passed the
first federal wilderness preservation law and set aside over 1
million acres in northern Minnesota as the Superior Primitive Area.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, Z1 p.6)
1933 Nov 13, The 1st modern
sit-down strike began with Hormel meat packers in Austin, Minn.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1933 The Minnesota Mortgage
Moratorium Law of 1933 was enacted to help farmers hold on to their
property during the Depression.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A15)
1934 Aug 18, Vincent Bugliosi,
attorney, author (Helter-Skelter), was born in Hibbing, Minn.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1934 The US Supreme Court
decided in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell to back
the home owner as opposed to the lender in a mortgage payment
dispute. The Minnesota state court had earlier ruled that Minnesota
law protected the home owners from foreclosure for 2 years.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A15)
1935 Reporter Howard Guilford
was shotgunned to death. The state had indicted him 19 times under
false charges of which he was acquitted.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.10)
1936 Feb 24, Reporter Walter W.
Liggett (b.1886) was murdered in front of his wife and daughter. He
had opposed Gov. Floyd Olson, who had been elected to control the
Farmer-Labor party. In 1998 his daughter, Marda Liggett Woodbury,
published “Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W. Liggett.”
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.4,10)
1937 Jan 1, At a party at the
Hormel Mansion in Minnesota, a guest won $100 for naming a new
canned meat-Spam. SPAM was originally called Hormel Spiced Ham in
1936 without much success.
(HN, 1/1/00)(http://tinyurl.com/3soounh)
1937 May 11, Spam, a canned ham
by Hormel, was registered as a trademark. It was introduced to the
public as Spam on July 5, 1937.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.D10)(http://tinyurl.com/3soounh)
1938 Harold E. Stassen (31)
defeated Gov. Elmer A Benson and became the youngest governor ever
elected in any US state.
(SFC, 3/5/01, p.A24)
1938 Curtis L. Carlson (d.1999
at 84) borrowed $55 and created the Gold Bond Stamp Co. which made
trading stamps for grocery stores to attract customers. He parlayed
the operation into large real estate holdings that included the
Radisson Hotel which he expanded to a 350-hotel chain.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.A22)
1940 Nov 22, Terry Gilliam,
comedy author-animator (Monty Python), was born in Minneapolis.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1941 Mar 15, A blizzard in
North Dakota killed 151. [see Mar 16]
(MC, 3/15/02)
1941 Mar 16, A blizzard hit
North Dakota and Minnesota killing 60. [see Mar 15]
(MC, 3/16/02)
1941 May 24, Robert Allen
Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan), singer and songwriter, was born in
Minnesota.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.E3)(HN, 5/24/98)
1941 The US Army asked Prof.
Ancel Keys (1904-2004) of the Univ. of Minnesota to help develop an
army ration that soldiers could carry in combat. His package was
called the K ration.
(SFC, 11/24/04, p.B6)
1942 Mar 7, Tamara Faye
LaValley (d.2007) was born in International Falls, Minn. She later
married fellow bible college student Jim Bakker. Together they
established a Christian talk variety show, the PTL Club, which
collapsed in 1987 amid a sex and money scandal.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
1943 Apr, Gov. Harold Stassen
resigned and joined the Navy. He served as assistant chief of staff
to Adm. William Halsey. Pres. Roosevelt later appointed him to the
US delegation to the meeting that drafted the UN charter.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.A5)
1944 Jul 21, Paul Wellstone,
(Sen-D-Minnesota), was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1946 Jul 28, Linda Kelsey,
actress (Kate-Day by Day), was born in Minneapolis, Minn.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1949 Earl Bakken (b.1924)
founded Medtronic in Minneapolis, Minn.
(Econ, 3/14/09, SR
p.17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Bakken)
1950 Jun 27, Julia Duffy,
actress (Stephanie-Newhart, Baby Talk), was born in Minneapolis,
Minn.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1951 Mar 16, Hastened by short
winter, all spring flowers opened in Minneapolis.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1952 Jul 15, Jesse Ventura,
[James Janos], wrestler, actor, politician (MN Governor), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1953 Jul 22, The Theodore Hamm
Brewing Co. of St. Paul, Minn., purchased the Rainier Brewing Co. at
1550 Bryant St., SF, for $1,809,937. The trade name had already been
sold to Sick Brewery Enterprises of Seattle.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.E5)
1955 Mar 22, Linda Stout became
the first person at Mayo Clinic, and the second person in the world,
to have open-heart surgery with the aid of a heart-lung bypass
machine.
(www.mayoclinic.org/history/)
1956 A new shopping mall in
Edina, Minn., the 1st enclosed shopping mall, was designed as a
center of community by Victor Gruen (1903-1980). In 2004 Paco
Underhill authored "Call of the Mall," an account of the decline of
the shopping mall.
(WSJ, 12/24/03, p.D7)(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.W9)(Econ,
12/22/07, p.102)
1957 Aug 19, The first balloon
flight to exceed 100,000 feet took off from Crosby, Minnesota. US
Major David Simons reached 30,933 m. in a balloon.
(HN, 8/19/00)(MC, 8/19/02)
1957 A group of teachers near
Lake Minnetonka created a toy dump truck named Tonka trucks in honor
of the nearby lake.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.B3)
1958 Feb 19, Hail the size of
baseballs was reported with flash lightning over parts of
Minneapolis.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1958 Jun 7, Prince Rogers
Nelson, rock star later known as Prince, was born in Minneapolis,
Minn.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.B1)
1958 Oct 4, In Minnesota a
single engine military Cessna L-19 crashed into Green Lake and took
the life of Captain Richard P. Carey, 36, who was returning to the
Willmar airfield from Rochester. The pane was recovered in 2005.
(AP, 8/14/05)
1959 Feb 4, In Fargo, N.D.,
Bobby Vee (15), aka Robert Veline, and the Shadows performed in
public for the first time. The audience had come to see Buddy Holly
and the Crickets. Rock-n-roll stars, including Dion and the
Belmonts, traveled by bus from Iowa to Fargo in order to perform in
nearby Moorhead, Minn.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 2/25/99, p.A16)
1960 George Leonard Herter
(1911-1994), Minnesota-born catalogue writer, published his “Bull
Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices.” Herter was
later considered the prince of fantasy food historians.
(http://tinyurl.com/4lgjf)(www.archeryarchives.com/herterhistory.html)
1960 The Washington Senators, a
baseball team in the American League, moved from Washington, D.C.,
to Minnesota at the end of 1960 and became the Minnesota Twins.
(HNQ, 6/29/01)
1961 Elmer L. Anderson
(1909-2005), liberal Republican, began serving a 2-year term as
governor of Minnesota.
(SFC, 11/17/04, p.B8)
1963 May, The Guthrie Theater
opened next door to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It was
designed by Ralph Rapson and led by Tyrone Guthrie. Plans in 2002
called for it to be razed for a 4-acre sculpture garden.
(WSJ, 7/9/02, p.D6)
1965 Apr 17, A stretch of the
Mississippi River near Minneapolis crested at a record high.
Flooding caused $100 million in damages and left 12 people dead.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.D8)
1967 Feb 10, The 25th Amendment
to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and
succession, went into effect as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/10/08)
1968 May 28, Minnesota Senator
Eugene McCarthy beat Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the Democratic
primary in Oregon.
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)
1968 James Patrick Shannon
(d.2003), auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minn., resigned following
reprimands over his views over birth control and the Vietnam War. In
1999 he authored "Reluctant Dissenter."
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A27)
1969 Aug 2, Bob Dylan made a
surprise appearance at the Minn. Hibbing High School 10-year
reunion.
(http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshistory/a/august2.htm)
1969 Mdewakanton Dakota Indians
were granted 248 acres of their ancestral lands.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)
1969 The first hip replacement
in the US was performed at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1970 Sep 19, “The Mary Tyler
Moore Show” with Ed Asner debuted on CBS TV and ran to 1977. Mary
Richards threw her hat at 7th St. and Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis
for the opening credits. In 2001 the city planned a $150,000 statue
of Mary to be made by Gwendolyn Gillen of Wisconsin.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, DB p.39)(AP, 9/19/00)(WSJ,
6/19/01, p.A1)
1971 The Walker Art Center in
Minneapolis, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004), was
completed.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.B7)
1972 Jan, Poet John Berryman
(b.1914) leaped to his death from a bridge above the Mississippi
River. He was teaching a graduate course at the Univ. of Minnesota
on America’s character as revealed by its poets. Carl Rakosi took
over the class.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.1)
1974 Jul 6, Garrison Keillor
made his 1st live broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion" from
Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. In 2003 the show drew some 3.9
million listeners weekly. The show ended in 1987 and resumed in New
York in 1989. It returned to Minnesota in 1993.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.13)(SFC, 12/20/00,
p.E5)(SFC, 9/4/03, p.E12)
1974 Dec, Allan Spear
(1937-2008), Minnesota state senator, announced that he was gay,
becoming only one of two openly gay legislators in the country.
(SFC, 10/14/08, p.B5)
1976 Sep 16, The Episcopal
Church, at its General Convention in Minneapolis, formally approved
the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
(AP, 9/16/01)
1978 Jan 13, Former Vice
President Hubert H. Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn., at age 66.
(AP, 1/13/98)
1978 Feb 6, Muriel Humphrey
took the oath of office as a US senator from Minnesota, filling the
seat of her late husband, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
(AP, 2/6/97)
1979 Oct 23, Billy Martin
(1928-1989), NY Yankee baseball manager, was involved in a barroom
altercation when he sucker punched Joseph Cooper, a Minnesota
marshmallow salesman. Cooper required 15 stitches. Martin was fired.
(www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/October_23)
1979 Nov 20, The first US
artificial blood transfusion occurred at Univ. of Minn. Hospital.
The patient was a Jehovah's Witness, who had refused a transfusion
of real blood because of his religious beliefs.
(www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm)
1982 In Minneapolis,
Minn., the new $88.5 million, enclosed Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
opened. It replaced the Metropolitan Stadium over which the 1992
Mall of America was built.
(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.D8)
1982 The Duluth Herald merged
with the Duluth News.
(SFC, 10/11/02, p.A24)
1984 In Bemidji, Minn., the
first low-power TV station began operating under special FCC
license.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A1)
1985 Aug 17, More than 1,400
meatpackers walked off the job at the Geo. A. Hormel and Co.'s main
plant in Austin, Minn., in a bitter strike that lasted just over a
year.
(AP, 8/17/05)
1985 Dec 19, In Minneapolis,
Minnesota, Mary Lund became the first woman to receive a Jarvik VII
artificial heart. Lund received a human heart transplant 45 days
later; she died October 14, 1986.
(AP, 12/19/05)
1985 The St. Paul Pioneer Press
merged with the St. Paul Dispatch.
(SFC, 10/11/02, p.A24)
1987 Jun 13, The last regularly
scheduled episode of "A Prairie Home Companion," starring humorist
Garrison Keillor, was broadcast from the old World Theater in St.
Paul, Minn.
(AP, 6/13/97)
1987 Oct 17, The 1st indoor
World Series game took place at the Minnesota Metrodome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_World_Series)
1988 Sep 10, Gretchen Elizabeth
Carlson of Minnesota was crowned Miss America.
(AP, 9/10/98)
1989 Oct 22, Jacob Erwin
Wetterling (b.1978) was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Neither
he or his abductor have been found. In 1994, the Jacob Wetterling
Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration
Act, more simply known as the Jacob Wetterling Act, was passed in
his honor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Wetterling)
1989 Steve Shussler of
Minneapolis founded the Rainforest Café. It grew to 30 US
locations by 2000.
(SFC, 6/23/00, p.C1)
1990 Jun 3, President Bush and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev concluded their Washington
summit with a joint news conference at the White House. Gorbachev
and his delegation then flew to Minnesota for a whirlwind tour of
Minneapolis-St. Paul.
(AP, 6/3/00)
1990 Jul 25, The US Senate
formally denounced Senator Dave Durenberger (Republican, Minnesota)
for financial improprieties.
(AP, 7/25/00)
1991 Oct 4, Leonard C. Odell
died at age 83. He and his older brother Allan (d.1994) wrote some
7,000 Burma Shave poems beginning in 1925 in rural Minnesota. The
Burma-Shave phenomenon faded in 1963, when Phillip Morris bought
Burma-Vita and the signs began to come down.
(http://tinyurl.com/f4s8h)(www.two-lane.com/burmashave.html)
1991 Oct 13, The Minnesota
Twins won the American League pennant, defeating the Toronto Blue
Jays 8-5 at SkyDome.
(AP, 10/13/01)
1991 Oct 27, The Minnesota
Twins won the World Series, beating the Atlanta Braves 1-0 in the
bottom of the 10th inning in the seventh and deciding game.
(AP, 10/27/01)
1991 Paul Wellstone (d.2002),
Minnesota college professor, was elected as a US Senator over Rep.
Sen. Rudy Boschwitz. In 2001 He authored “The Conscience of a
Liberal.”
(WSJ, 5/15/01, p.A24)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A8)
1992 Aug 11, The Mall of
America, the biggest shopping mall in the country, opened in
Bloomington, Minn.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1992 The Mdewakanton Dakota
Indians, a tribe of 270 people, opened their Mystic Lake casino
complex on their 248 acres of tribal land.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A1,6)
1992 Members of the militia
group called the Minnesota Patriots Council plotted to kill law
enforcement officials with ricin, a lethal toxin extracted from the
castor bean. Two men were arrested in the plot.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A9)
1993 Dec 1, Eighteen people
were killed when a Northwest Airlink commuter plane crashed in
Minnesota.
(AP, 12/1/98)
1993 Minnesota’s National
Hockey League team was spirited out of St. Paul.
(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.T6)
1993 Minnesota passed a law
requiring cemeteries to bury the dead all winter as long as families
were willing to pay the extra cost.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)
1994 Jan 17, Allan Odell died
at age 90. He and his younger brother Leonard (d.1991) wrote some
7,000 Burma Shave poems beginning in 1925 in rural Minnesota. The
Burma-Shave phenomenon faded in 1963, when Phillip Morris bought
Burma-Vita and the signs began to come down.
(http://tinyurl.com/es9ab)(www.two-lane.com/burmashave.html)
1994 Jun 4, Gregory Scarpa,
nicknamed The Grim Reaper, died in a Minnesota prison. He was a
soldier for the Colombo crime family and an informant for the FBI.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Scarpa_Sr.)
1994 At the Mayo Clinic in
Minnesota the 1st successful heart-lung transplant was performed.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM,
p.5)(www.mayoclinic.org/patientinfo/)
1995 Jan 12, Qubilah Shabazz,
the daughter of Malcolm X, was arrested in Minneapolis on charges
that she had tried to hire a hitman to kill Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan; the charges were later dropped.
(AP, 1/12/00)
1995 Minnesota schoolchildren
discovered gross deformities in frogs during a field trip with their
teacher. In 1999 researchers reported that a parasitic flatworm
trematode was responsible for many from deformities. Cercariae cysts
dissolved in the digestive tracts of birds supply worm eggs that
incubate in aquatic snails and are released to attack frogs.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.A4,5)
1997 A concept called "circle
sentencing" began on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation. It involved
community-imposed sentences for nonviolent misdemeanors. The program
was fashioned after practices by the First Nation Indians in the
Yukon Territory.
(SFC, 2/15/99, p.A3)
1998 Feb 20, UN Ambassador Bill
Richardson was shouted down by protestors against the invasion of
Iraq at the Univ. of Minnesota. He abandoned his speech.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 29, Twisters from St.
Peter to Comfrey damaged an estimated 819 homes and left 2 people
dead.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 May 8, The tobacco
industry agreed to pay $6.6 billion to settle a suit with the state
of Minnesota as the state's lawsuit was about to go to a jury. The
settlement included restrictions on sales and marketing with
payments spread over 25 years. Minnesota became the fourth state to
settle with the tobacco industry over the costs of treating
smoking-related illnesses.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A3)(AP, 5/8/99)
1998 Sep 3, In St. Paul Khoua
Her (24), a Hmong refugee from Laos, reported that she had strangled
her 6 children ages 5-11. Police took her into custody after finding
the 6 bodies. During the course of the investigation, police learned
that Her had her first child at age 13 in a Thai refugee camp. In a
plea deal, Khoua Her received 50 years in prison on six counts of
second-degree murder.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/r6pje)
1998 Nov 3, In Minnesota Jesse
“The Body” Ventura, a former wrestler, was elected governor.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A3)
1998 Nov 10, A heavy snow storm
hit the northern Midwest. Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas
suffered loss of power, heavy snow and violent winds.
(SFC, 11/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 11, A natural gas
explosion in St. Cloud killed 4 people after construction workers
hit a gas line.
(SFC, 12/12/98, p.A12)
1999 Jan 4, Jesse Ventura took
the oath of office as the 38th governor.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 16, Kathleen Ann
Soliah, a fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, was
captured in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she had made a new life under
the name Sara Jane Olson.
(AP, 6/16/00)
1999 Mar, The US Supreme Court
ruled to uphold an 1837 treaty with the Chippewa Indians for hunting
and fishing on 13 million acres of public land in Minnesota.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 13, Jesse Ventura
published his autobiography: I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking
the Body Politic From the Bottom Up."
(SFC, 5/14/99, p.A3)
1999 May 17, The Legislature
overrode a veto by Gov. Ventura and passed a bill to allow accident
victims to sue over defective seat belts.
(SFC, 5/18/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 30, Farrah Slad of
Brainerd, Minn., (21) won the $150 million Powerball lottery. She
chose to receive a lump sum of $50.4 million after taxes.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.A3)
1999 Jul 3, A power boat
collision on the St. Croix River left as many as 8 people dead.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A7)
1999 Sep, Percy Ross (83)
published his final syndicated "Thanks a Million" column, which he
used to share his fortune with people who wrote in good sob stories.
He was reported to have given out $20-30 million over the last 17
years.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.A3)
2000 Feb 11, Gov. Jesse Ventura
cut his ties to the Reform Party.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 4, It was reported
that the Hmong population reached an estimated 60,000, the largest
concentration of Hmong outside Southeast Asia.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.B1)
2000 Jun 25, The US Green party
nominated Ralph Nader as its presidential candidate with running
mate Winona LaDuke, an Ojibwe activist from Minnesota.
(SFC, 6/26/00, p.A3)
2000 Jul 24, In Minneapolis,
Minn., 80 people were arrested as demonstrators protested against a
meeting of the Int’l. Society for Animal Genetics.
(SFC, 7/25/00, p.A4)
2000 Oct 10, Rep. Bruce Vento,
a 12-term liberal Democrat, died at age 60. He championed
environmental and homeless causes. The Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary
in St. Paul was named in his honor.
(SFC, 10/12/00, p.C2)(LP, Spring 2006, p.25)
2000 The XCel Energy Center was
completed in St. Paul at a cost of $130 mil.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A3)
2000 Garth Willis of St. Paul,
Minn., founded the Alpine Fund to train local Kyrgyzstan children as
mountain guides.
(SSFC, 11/24/02, p.F5)
2001 Jan 31, Gordon Dickson,
Science-fiction author of over 80 books, died at age 77 in
Richfield, Minn. His “Lost Dorsai” series spanned from 1400-2400AD.
(SFC, 2/3/01, p.A16)
2001 Mar 4, Former Minnesota
3-term Gov. Harold E. Stassen died at age 93.
(SFC, 3/5/01, p.A24)
2001 Aug 16, Zacarias Moussaoui
(33), a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested in Eagan,
Minnesota, on immigration charges. He was taking lessons on flying
Boeing jets with no interest in taking off or landing. He was later
suspected as a 5th member of one of the Sep 11 WTC attack teams. In
Nov the FBI reported that Moussaoui wanted to learn how to take off
and land but not to fly. Mueller also said Ramzi Omar of Yemen, aka
Ramsi Binalshibh, may have been the 20th hijacker. The local FBI
contacted the CIA for action on Moussaoui when FBI managers failed
to take action. Agent Coleen Rowley later charged that senior
officials fumbled an opportunity to possibly prevent the Sep 11
terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 11/8/01, p.A7)(SFC, 11/15/01, p.A12)(WSJ,
2/4/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/6/02,
p.A14)
2001 Oct 1, Some 28,000 state
workers went on strike over wage disputes.
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A9)
2001 Oct 14, Unions in
Minnesota reached a deal with the state to end a walkout by some
23,000 government workers.
(SFC, 10/15/01, p.E3)
2001 Oct 24, A blizzard hit
North Dakota and Minnesota. The 10 inches of snow broke a 1926
record.
(WSJ, 10/25/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 11-16, In St. Cloud,
Minn., three healthy men died following knee surgeries from
infections of Clostridium sordellii.
(SFC, 11/28/01, p.A5)
2002 Feb 23, Penn State pole
vaulter Kevin Dare died after landing on his head during the Big Ten
indoor championships in Minneapolis.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2002 Feb 24, Dr. Donna Anderson
of Minnesota arrived at the home of her former husband in Burlingame
and stabbed to death her son (13). Anderson attempted to plead
guilty and said she was the target of a ring of child pornographers.
A judge halted criminal proceedings and called for an evaluation of
mental competency.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.B1)(SFC, 3/2/02, p.A19)
2002 May 7, Lucas John Helder
(21) of Pine Island, Minn., was arrested following a car chase near
Lovelock, Nevada, and charged for the recent series of mailbox pipe
bombs. Helder said he was trying to make a "smiley face" pattern on
the map of his bombings. His series of rural mailbox bombings left
six people wounded in Illinois and Iowa. Helder has since been found
incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A3)(AP,
5/7/07)
2002 Jun 18, Minnesota Gov.
Jesse Ventura announced he would not seek a second term.
(AP, 6/18/03)(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A2)
2002 Jun, The Spam Museum
opened in Astin, Minn.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.D10)
2002 Oct 10, Bernard Ridder Jr.
(85), former St. Paul , Minn., newspaper executive, died in
California. He was the head or Ridder Publications when it merged
with the Knight group in 1974.
(SFC, 10/11/02, p.A24)
2002 Oct 25, In Minnesota a
small plane crash killed Sen. Paul Wellstone (58), his wife,
daughter and 5 others. His re-election race was seen as critical to
the balance of power in the Senate, where the Democrats held a
50-to-49 edge.
(AP, 10/26/02)
2002 Oct 29, A Minneapolis
memorial service for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone turned into a
virtual political rally as friends and relatives urged Minnesotans
to honor his memory by putting a Democrat in his seat.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2002 Oct 30, In Minnesota
Walter Mondale took the ballot place of the late Sen. Wellstone.
Mondale ended up losing to Republican Norm Coleman.
(WSJ, 10/31/02, p.A1)(AP, 10/30/03)
2002 Nov 4, In Minnesota Gov.
Ventura named his aide, Independent Dean Barkley, to serve out the
term of the late Sen. Wellstone.
(SFC, 11/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 5, In Minnesota Tim
Pawlenty, Republican, was elected governor. He captured 30 of the 38
counties that Gov. Ventura had won. Republican Norm Coleman defeated
Walter Mondale for the US Senate.
(Econ, 5/22/04, p.29)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.38)
2002 John P. Rogers (b.1966), a
failing entrepreneur from Minnesota, founded Pay By Touch in San
Francisco, a firm seeking to use biometric authentication to
transform how America pays its bills. Rogers had a record of cocaine
abuse that went back to his time in Minnesota. By 2007 the firm
failed following investments of some $340 million.
(SSFC, 12/7/08, p.A1)
2003 Jan 6, Timothy James
Pawlenty raised his hand shortly after noon, repeated binding words
of duty and became Minnesota's 38th governor.
(www.hometownsource.com/capitol/2003/january/6swornin.html)
2003 Feb 20, Orville L.
Freeman (1919-2003) former governor of Minnesota (1955-1960) and US
agriculture secretary under Pres. Kennedy and Johnson, died at age
84.
(SFC, 2/22/03, A16)
2003 Aug 29, Jeffrey Lee
Parson (18), suspected of writing a variant of the "Blaster," a
virus-like computer worm, was arrested in his hometown, the
Minneapolis suburb of Hopkins. He was charged with one count of
intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a computer
and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if
convicted. Parson pleaded guilty in August 2004 and was subsequently
sentenced on January 28, 2005 to 18 months in prison followed by a
three-year supervised release program, and was required to do 225
hours of community service. He was ordered to pay restitution of
$497,546.55 to Microsoft Corporation and $1,056 to specific
individuals to have their computer hard drives cleaned.
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A1)(SFC, 8/30/03,
p.A2)(www.rbs2.com/parson2.html)
2003 Sep 24, In Cold Spring,
Minn., Jason McLaughlin (15), a high school freshman, shot and
killed senior Aaron Rollins (17) and wounded Seth Bartell (14)
before surrendering. Bartell died from his wounds on Oct 10. On
August 30, 2005, McLaughlin was sentenced to life in prison, with no
possibility for parole until he’s well over 50. He was convicted of
first degree murder in the shooting death of Bartell and
second-degree murder for killing Rollins.
(SFC, 10/11/03,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocori_High_School_shooting)
2003 Nov 22, North Dakota
student Dru Sjodin (22) was last seen at the Grand Forks, ND, mall,
where she worked. Her body was found the following April near
Crookston, Minn. Suspect Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., released from prison
6-months before the murder, pleaded innocent to kidnapping resulting
in Sjodin's death. In 2006 Rodriguez (53) was found guilty of
kidnapping and killing Sjodin.
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A13)(AP, 11/22/04)(SFC,
8/31/06, p.A7)
2003 Dec 1, Alfonso Rodriguez
Jr. (50), described by authorities as a predatory sex offender was
arrested in Crookston, Minn. He was charged with kidnapping in the
disappearance of Dru Sjodin, a North Dakota college student,
abducted Nov 22, while talking on her cell phone.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Jerome Pohlen authored
"Oddball Minnesota: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C9)
2004 Feb 2, Officials planned
to present final proposals to Gov. Pawlenty for the replacement of
the 20-year-old Minneapolis Metrodome.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2004 Apr 6, It was reported
that some 15,000 Hmong refugees were expected to arrive from
Thailand into St. Paul, Minn., and other US communities in the
summer.
(SFC, 4/6/04, p.F1)
2004 Apr 17, The body of
University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin (22) was found in a
ravine northwest of Crookston, Minn. She was last seen Nov 22 at the
Grand Forks, ND, mall, where she worked. Alfonso Rodriquez was
arrested in Dec. and investigators matched DNA in blood in his car
to Sjodin.
(AP, 4/18/04)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.A13)
2004 Jul 29, Target Corp. of
Minneapolis announced it would sell Mervyn’s to Sun Capital Partners
in Boca Raton, Fla., for $1.65 billion.
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.J1)
2004 Nov 15, Elmer L. Anderson,
former Minnesota Republican governor (1961-1963), died.
(SFC, 11/17/04, p.B8)
2005 Mar 21, In northern
Minnesota Jeff Weise (17) gunned down five students, a teacher and a
guard at Red Lake High School. The teen's grandfather and his
grandfather's wife also were found dead, and the boy killed himself.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 May 21, The Bruce Vento
Nature Sanctuary in St. Paul, Minnesota, was dedicated. It was named
after Minnesota’s Rep. Bruce Vento (d.2000).
(www.mepartnership.org/sites/LOWERPHALENCREEK/)
2005 May, Feds in Minnesota
shut down the flagship company, Xpress Pharmacy Direct, of
Christopher Smith (25) and seized $1.8 million in luxury cars, two
homes and $1.3 million in cash held by Smith and associates. The
Spamhaus Project, an anti-spam group, considered him one of the
world's worst offenders.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Jul 1, In St. Paul some
state offices closed and about 9,000 state employees were jobless
after parts of Minnesota's government shut down for the first time
in state history, leaving most rest stops closed for the
Independence Day weekend. Lawmakers failed to pass even a stopgap
plan to keep the government up and running while negotiators keep
working.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jul 9, Minnesota Gov. Jim
Pawlenty signed a temporary spending plan and lawmakers agreed on
the outline of a 2-year budget.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.A3)
2005 Aug 19, Some 4,430
mechanics at Northwest Airlines, based in Eagan, Minnesota, went on
strike at midnight as a 30-day cooling off period expired. The
airline called for $176 million in concessions including 2,000 job
cuts.
(SFC, 8/20/05, p.A4)(SFC, 8/26/05, p.C3)
2005 Oct 16, Gordon Lee
(b.1933), child actor who played Porky in the “Our Gang” shorts
(Little Rascals), died in Minneapolis, Min. Porky was the little
brother of Spanky McFarland.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.B5)
2005 Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a
single mother from Minnesota, was accused of sharing 24 songs using
KaZaA. In 2007 a jury ruled against her and awarded record companies
almost $10,000 per song in statutory damages. She was found guilty
again in a 2nd trial in 2009 in which the jury awarded damages of
$80,000 per song.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.4)
2006 Feb 11, It was reported
that the town of Hull was one of many in central Iowa whose
groundwater has been contaminated by farm chemicals. It pinned hopes
for its future water supply on the new Lewis and Clark Rural Water
System, due to open in 2018. The system planned to pump Missouri
River water across South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.33)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms
of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of
Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and
Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the
mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 May 2, In Minnesota a
small, spiral-shaped snail that clones itself and is native to New
Zealand has been discovered in Duluth-Superior Harbor and the St.
Louis River estuary, raising concerns about the impact of another
invasive species.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 Aug 24, Deadly storms
swept across the northern Plains, bringing tornadoes that ripped
roofs off houses and hail that smashed car windshields. One man was
killed when a tornado hit his home in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin,
lightning apparently killed a dozen cows and struck a woman as she
left a supermarket.
(AP, 8/25/06)
2006 Sep 8, In Minneapolis
ground was broken for the new Masjid An-Nur mosque, the 1st mosque
in Minnesota.
(Econ, 9/23/06, p.32)
2006 Sep 27, Republicans
announced they would hold their 2008 presidential convention in the
Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
(Econ, 1/13/07, p.30)(AP, 9/27/07)
2006 Nov 7, Keith Ellison, a
Democratic state lawmaker from Minnesota, became the first Muslim
elected to Congress.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2006 Nov 16, Minnesota Twins
ace Johan Santana won the AL Cy Young Award.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2006 Dec 5, An annual US report
put Minnesota at the top of its health rankings for the fourth
straight year, while concluding that the nation's health improved
slightly.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 13, Jeffrey Skilling
reported to a low-security prison in Minnesota to begin serving a
24-year sentence for his crimes as a top executive at Enron Corp.
(SFC, 12/14/06, p.A11)
2007 Jan 4, The 110th Congress
convened with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for
the first time in a dozen years. "Today we make history. Today we
change the direction of our country," exulted Rep. Nancy Pelosi,
poised to become the first woman speaker in history. The House of
Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership,
voted to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting
gifts and meals from lobbyists. Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th
District became the first Muslim member of Congress.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Apr 16, The board
overseeing operations at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International
Airport ruled that taxi drivers who refuse service to travelers
carrying alcohol face tougher penalties despite protests from Muslim
cabbies who sought a compromise for religious reasons.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Jun 24, Charles W.
Lindberg (86), one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American
flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, died in Edina, Minn.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2007 Jul 6, Kathleen E.
Woodiwiss (b.1939), author of steamy genre novels, died in
Princeton, Minn. She was widely credited with having founded the
historical romance in its modern carnal incarnation. “The Flame and
the Flower” (1972) was the 1st of her 13 novels.
(SFC, 7/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Aug 1, A major bridge on
I-35W over the Mississippi River collapsed in Minneapolis, Minn., at
rush hour. Initial reports said at least 5 people were killed. The
bridge dated to 1967. On Aug 9 Navy divers recovered two more
bodies, including one identified as a former missionary who had been
reported missing. Divers recovered an 8th victim on Aug 10 and a 9th
on Aug 12. Two more victims were found on Aug 16. A 12th victim was
found Aug 19. The 13th and last victim was found Aug 20. In 2008
Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a $38 million package to compensate victims
of the collapse. In 2010 URS Corp., which had a contract to evaluate
the bridge’s structural integrity, reached $5 million settlement
with Minnesota. In August URS later agreed to pay over $52 million
to settle claims by victims.
(AP, 8/2/07)(SFC, 8/1/07, p.A5)(AP, 8/10/07)(SFC,
8/11/07, p.A5)(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/17/07, p.A1)(SFC, 8/20/07,
p.A3)(AP, 8/21/07)(WSJ, 5/9/08, p.A1)(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)(SFC,
8/24/10, p.D1)
2007 Aug 4, President Bush
toured the site of a collapsed highway bridge in Minneapolis,
pledging to cut red tape that could delay rebuilding.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2007 Aug 19, Fierce storms from
the upper Mississippi to Texas since last week left 22 people dead.
Six people died in floodwaters across Oklahoma after heavy rains
from the remains of Tropical Storm Erin drenched the state. As much
as 9 inches of rain fell across a wide swath of Oklahoma, leaving
roadways under 5 feet of water. 8 people were reported dead in Texas
and 6 dead in Minnesota.
(Reuters, 8/20/07)(SFC, 8/21/07, p.A6)(AP,
8/22/07)
2007 Aug 20, In Minnesota
divers discovered the body of Gregory Jolstad, a 45-year-old
construction worker who was part of the crew resurfacing the
Interstate 35W bridge when it fell Aug. 1 during the evening rush
hour. The discovery brought the official death toll to 13. Gov. Tim
Pawlenty said the emergency response costs alone would be more than
$8 million.
(AP, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 23, University of
Minnesota astronomers announced that they have stumbled upon a
tremendous hole in the universe. The cosmic blank spot has no stray
stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark
matter. The 1 billion light years across of nothing represented an
expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Oct 4, The recording
industry won a major fight in its effort to stop illegal music
downloading with a US jury decision to impose $222,000 damages
against a Minnesota woman who used a Web service to share music.
(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 20, Max McGee (75),
former Green Bay Packers receiver, died in Deephaven, Minn.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2007 Nov 28, In Minnesota a
fire at a pipeline from Canada that feeds oil to the US killed 2
people. The pipeline that leaked and four others were shut down,
though it wasn't clear for how long, sending oil prices up the next
day.
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Dec 23, High wind and ice
coated power lines blacked out tens of thousands of people in the
Midwest. The storm was blamed for at least 22 deaths. At least 8
people in Minnesota, 5 in Wisconsin, 3 each in Indiana and Wyoming
and one each in Michigan, Texas and Kansas were killed in traffic
accidents.
(AP, 12/23/07)(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A1)(SFC,
12/25/07, p.A11)
2008 Feb 19, In southwestern
Minnesota a driving a van crashed into a school bus, killing four
students. Olga Marino Franco del Cid (24) of Minneota, was later
charged in state court with four counts of criminal vehicular
homicide. Federal prosecutors later filed identity theft charges
against the woman, who had identified herself as Alianiss
Nunez-Morales. Immigration investigators said they found the real
Nunez-Morales in Connecticut.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2008 May 25, Powerful storms
packing large hail, heavy rain and tornadoes made for a deadly
Memorial Day weekend across the nation's midsection, killing at
least seven people in Iowa and a 2-year-old child in Minnesota. 222
homes were destroyed in Iowa.
(AP, 5/26/08)(SFC, 5/28/08, p.A2)
2008 May 31, FDIC bank
regulators took over the First Integrity Bank in Staples, Minnesota.
This was the 4th FDIC-insured bank to fail this year.
(WSJ, 6/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 12, In Minnesota
Katricia Daniels (36) and her son, Robert Shepard (10), were found
murdered. Daniels was stabbed and cut more than 100 times and her
son had a television smashed over his head. On June 18 Stafon Edward
Thompson (17) and Brian Lee Flowers (16), both of Minneapolis, were
charged as adults with first-degree murder.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 24, Leonid Hurwicz,
Nobel Prize co-winner in economics (2007), died in Minnesota.
(SFC, 6/26/08, p.B5)
2008 Jul 31, A small jet
crashed while preparing to land at Degner Regional Airport in
Minnesota killing 8 people including several casino and construction
executives.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 1, The GOP convention
opened at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in an
abbreviated session due to Hurricane Gustav. Alaska’s Gov. Palin,
GOP candidate for the vice-presidency, disclosed that her daughter,
Bristol (17), is 5 months pregnant. An antiwar march drew som 10,000
people. Over 250 demonstrators were arrested as splinter groups
smashed department store and police car windows.
(SFC, 9/2/08, p.A1,5)(WSJ, 9/2/08, p.A4)(WSJ,
9/4/08, p.A6)
2008 Sep 2, Pres. Bush
delivered a 6-minute televised speech to GOP delegates in St. Paul,
Minn., as the convention returned to its pre-hurricane schedule.
(WSJ, 9/3/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 3, In St. Paul, Minn.,
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back
little as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and
flattering praise on her credentials. Palin seduced many on
television who had spent days doubting her VP candidacy.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 4, In St. Paul, Minn.,
John McCain claimed the GOP presidential nomination portraying
himself as a maverick warrior and agent of change.
(AP, 9/5/08)(SFC, 9/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, In Minnesota the
new Interstate 35W bridge opened. The old span over the Mississippi
River had collapsed on August 1, 2007. The new St. Anthony Falls
Bridge was embedded with an early warning system consisting of
hundreds of sensors.
(SFC, 9/18/08, p.A8)(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.6)
2008 Oct 3, The Great Lakes
Governors (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) applauded President George W. Bush for
signing a joint resolution of Congress providing consent to the
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.
It barred new diversions beyond the Great Lakes Basin.
(www.cglg.org/projects/water/CompactConsent.asp)(Econ, 5/22/10,
p.36)
2008 Oct 3, Thomas Petters
(51), founder of Petters Co., was arrested in Minnesota on charges
of mail and wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Over 20 investors and investment groups were thought to have been
bilked of over $100 million and losses claimed by funds could top $2
billion.
(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.B7)
2008 Dec 9, Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. said it will pay up to $54.25 million to settle a class-action
lawsuit that alleged the discount giant cut workers' break time and
didn't prevent employees from working off the clock in Minnesota.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Dec 17, In Minnesota two
freight trains collided sending an engineer and some cars into the
Mississippi River.
(WSJ, 12/18/08, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, A Minnesota board
certified results showing Democrat Al Franken winning the state’s US
Senate recount by 225 votes over Republican Norm Coleman, whose
lawyer promised a legal challenge.
(SFC, 1/6/09, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 12, Minnesota
officials said lab tests had confirmed salmonella bacteria in a five
pound container of King Nut brand peanut butter. King Nut of Solon,
Ohio, had recalled the product on January 10. At least 6 people had
been killed and over 470 sickened nationwide in 43 states.
(WSJ, 1/13/09, p.A2)(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A12)
2009 Apr 8, US federal agents
searched three money-transfer businesses in Minneapolis, carrying
away boxes of documents and copying computer hard drives for details
of transactions between the US and several African nations,
including Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the
United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 13, In Minnesota’s
Senate race a unanimous three-judge panel ruled in favor of Democrat
Al Franken, but former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman swiftly
announced he would take his fight to the state Supreme Court. After
a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stood 312 votes
ahead.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of
the US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid
groups from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington,
DC. The included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim
McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of
Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of
the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the
endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states
for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana
planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has
been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming
will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service
rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could
be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan,
Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 15, A Minnesota couple
who refused chemotherapy for Daniel Hauser, their 13-year-old son,
was ordered to have the boy re-evaluated to see if he would still
benefit from cancer treatment for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or if it
may already be too late. On May 18 Colleen Hauser and her son,
Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their home
sometime after a doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray showed
his tumor had grown. Hauser and her son returned on May 25 and
agreed to medical treatment.
(AP, 5/15/09)(SFC, 5/16/09, p.A5)(AP,
5/20/09)(AP, 5/26/09)(SFC, 5/27/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 18, In a replay of the
nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial a federal jury ruled
that Jammie Thomas-Rasset (32) of Minnesota willfully violated the
copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92
million, or $80,000 per song. The new trial was ordered after the
judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions.
Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When
a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit
Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 30, Minnesota’s state
Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Democrat Al Franken should be
certified the winner. Republican Norm Coleman pulled the plug on a
bitter election that was decided by 312 votes out of almost 2.9
million cast. Franken's victory gave Democrats 60 Senate seats, the
critical number needed to overcome Republican filibusters.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Aug 8, Continental Express
Flight 2816, en route with 47 passengers to Minneapolis from
Houston, was stranded overnight at Rochester, Minn., after being
forced to land due to storms. On Nov 24 the Dept. of Transportation
levied $175,000 in fines against Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba
Airlines for keeping the plane on the tarmac.
(SFC, 11/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Aug 16, Y.E. Yang (37) of
South Korea won the PGA Championship at Chaska, Minnesota, with a
2-under par 70 beating Tiger Woods who shot a 5 over par 75.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Oct 3, In Minnesota Somali
Pres. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed visited Minneapolis and St. Paul
and urged expatriates to help find solutions to the violence in
their homeland. The area is home to the largest Somali population in
the US.
(SSFC, 10/4/09, p.A10)
2009 Oct 22, The Minnesota
Supreme Court ruled that bong water can count as an illegal drug. A
person could be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25
grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled
substance.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A7)
2009 Oct 21, Northwest Airlines
Flight 188 overflew its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles.
Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour night
to contact pilot Richard Cole (54) of Salem, Oregon, and the
flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney (53), of Gig Harbor, Wash.,
using radio, cell phone and data messages. The pilots said they had
been having a heated discussion about airline policy. On Oct 27 the
FAA revoked the licenses of the two pilots saying they had been out
of radio contact for 91 minutes.
(AP, 10/24/09)(SFC, 10/28/09, p.A6)
2009 Oct 23, US regulators shut
down 3 small banks in Florida and one each in Georgia, Illinois,
Minnesota and Wisconsin bringing the total for the year of failed US
banks to 106.
(SFC, 10/24/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 1, Mohamud Said Omar
(43) was arrested at the request of US authorities in an asylum
seeker's center in Dronten, Netherlands. US authorities suspected
Omar of bankrolling the purchase of weapons for Islamic extremists
and helping other Somalis travel to Somalia in 2007 and 2008. He had
a US green card and was also suspected of recruiting youth in
Minneapolis for Islamic terrorism in Somalia.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2010 Apr 2, In Minnesota a fire
swept through a 2-story building that housed several apartments and
an Irish pub killing 6 people including 3 children in Minneapolis.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 25, In Minnesota a car
crashed into an SUV near Cambridge killing 6 people including 3
teenagers. The smell of alcohol was detected in a car driven by a
girl (16), who had obtained her license less than 3 weeks ago.
(SFC, 4/26/10, p.A3)
2010 May 1, In Minnesota a
suburban St. Paul police officer was killed during an ambush,
setting off a massive manhunt that ended with one suspect dead and
another in custody.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 Jun 3, A federal jury in
Minneapolis found vendors Russell and Abby Cole guilty of using an
online auction to defraud Best Buy of $41.6 million between
2003-2007. The vendors had the help of Robert Bossany, a Best Buy
employee.
(SFC, 6/14/10, p.E3)
2010 Jun 17, In Minnesota
tornadoes ripped through Wadena, part of a turbulent system that
fueled twisters across the state and killed at least three people.
(AP, 6/18/10)
2010 Jul 19, Despite being
rebuffed twice by the US Supreme Court, five states (Michigan,
Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania) filed suit with a lower
court demanding tougher federal and municipal action to prevent
Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes and decimating their
fishing industry.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Aug 5, US federal
indictments were unsealed in Alabama, California and Minnesota
charging 14 people with terrorism offenses for allegedly aiding the
radical Islamist al-Shaba organization in Somalia.
(SFC, 8/6/10, p.A8)
2010 Oct 25, In Wyoming a
single-engine plane disappeared after takeoff from the Jackson
airport. The plane’s wreckage was found Nov 1. Luke Bucklin (40) of
Minneapolis and his 3 sons were killed. Bucklin was co-founder of
Sierra Bravo Corp., a web development company.
(SFC, 11/1/10, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 8, An indictment was
unsealed that charged 29 people in a sex trafficking ring in which
Somali gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls
under age 14 into prostitution. 17 people were arrested in
Minnesota, 9 in Tennessee and 3 remained at large.
(SFC, 11/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 12, A storm that
spanned parts of eight states continued to dump heavy snow in the
upper Midwest, collapsing the Metrodome in Minneapolis and forcing
numerous road closures.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2011 Mar 17, In Minneapolis,
Min., one teen died and teenagers and young adults were hospitalized
following an apparent overdose on a designer hallucinogen, 2C-E (aka
Europa), which they had ordered legally over the Internet for a
spring break party.
(SFC, 3/18/11, p.A4)
2011 Jul 1, Minnesota's state
government began a broad shut down going into the July 4 holiday
after Democratic Governor Mark Dayton and Republican legislative
leaders failed to reach a budget deal.
(Reuters, 7/1/11)
2011 Jul 14, Minnesota Gov.
Mark Dayton and top Republican struck a deal to end a budget impasse
with the Democratic governor giving up on raising taxes.
(SFC, 7/15/11, p.A9)
2011 Jul 20, Minnesota ended a
state government shutdown after 20 days, millions in lost revenue
and frustration on the part of residents and lawmakers.
(SFC, 7/21/11, p.A6)
2011 Aug 13, In the Iowa
Republican straw poll Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann won
with 4,823 votes, Texas Rep. Ron Paul got 4,671. Former Minnesota
Gov. Rick Pawlenty received 2,293. His 3rd place finish led him to
drop out of the race.
(AP, 8/14/11)
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End of file