Minnesota, United States ‘s 32nd state, located in the northern United States, and borders to Canada and the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota. The state capital is Saint Paul, while Minneapolis is the state’s largest city. These two cities together form the area called the Twin Cities.
The state shares a water boundary on Lake Superior with Michigan and Wisconsin to the northeast. Minnesota’s nickname The Land of 10,000 Lakes, (the land of the 10,000 lakes) is no exaggeration, there are 11,482 lakes over 10 acres in size. It has 6,564 natural streams, which together flow over a total of approx. 110,000 km. The Mississippi River originates in Minnesota from Lake Itasca and crosses the border into Iowa approx. 1,100 km after.
The name Minnesota comes from Sioux and means “cloudy water”. The area that today makes up Minnesota was originally populated by Sioux and Chippewa Indians. See directoryaah for museums in Minnesota.
TIMELINE:
1659-60 – The French fur traders Groseilliers and Radisson, explored the western area of Lake Superior.
1750 – Battle of Kathio, is an oral tradition from the Chippewa Indians, which tells the story of the battle between Chippewa and Sioux, on the Rum River, next to Mille Lacs Lake. The Chippewa Indians defeated the Sioux Indians and conquered the area.
1820s – The immigration of settlers from New England and later from Europe began, especially from Scandinavia and Germany.
1832 – Henry Schoolcraft and the Ojibu Guide, Ozawindib, embark on their first expedition to Lake Itasca through the Mississippi River. He later became known for his 6 works on American Indians in the 1850s. Since 1891, the area around the lake has been a state nature park.
1858 – Minnesota became America’s 32nd state.
1862 – Dakota Indians (Sioux) launch an armed attack on settlers for non-compliance with land treaties, and Indians are mistreated by merchants. 486 settlers were killed; 38 Indians hanged in Mankato.
1873 – A three-day blizzard kills 70 people in the state.
1874 – The first Washburn A Mill, built by CC Washburn, was the largest flour mill in the world to date when completed. On May 2, 1878, a spark ignited all the airborne flour that caused an explosion so powerful that it killed 18 employees and smashed the mill, and subsequent fire resulted in four more casualties, destroyed 5 other mills and reduced Minneapolis’ mill business by a third.
1880 – Telecommunications are established between Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
1881 – On March 1, Saint Paul’s State Capitol was destroyed in a massive fire that started under mysterious circumstances.
1883 – A violent tornado hits Rochester on August 21, leaving a third of the city in ruins, killing 35 people. Read more here and see photos.
1886 – Until a tornado hits Sauk Rapids, the city is considered one of the most important in Minnesota. But on April 14, the fate of the city would be different. The tornado plowed through the heart of the city, killing 44 and wounding several hundred others (it claimed a total of 79 victims). Despite the fact that the site was rebuilt, it never achieved the same status as before.
1888 – Western Minnesota is hit by a huge snowstorm that kills 109. The blizzard also ravaged these other states: South and North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
1893 – Virginia, Minnesota, a fast-growing city, is destroyed by fire due to the heat, and residents initially ignore the fire, which turned out to be stupid. Two fires turned into one and engulfed the city in less than half an hour. Fortunately, there were no victims of the fire. Virginia was again wiped out in a fire seven years later.
1894 – A massive forest fire that starts on September 1, envelops Hinckley and other counties, killing over 400 people. Thomas Corbett, the man who killed John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Lincoln, is believed to have been killed in the fire, as his name is on the list of dead.
1908 – A town of 4,000 residents, Chisholm, first falls victim to a forest fire that raged for four days in September. Read more here.
1918 – An influenza epidemic kills 7521 people in the state. Read more here about the global disease that caused about 2 million. died, and several million. sick and debilitated. Read the rest here.
In October 1918, another massive fire destroyed Carlton County, hitting Moose Lake, Cloquet and the Kettle River. It was Cloquet who was worst included. It was the worst day in the state’s history when the disaster claimed 453 victims and 52,000 injured or homeless. 38 counties were destroyed, 1,000 km 2 of land was burned and it all cost $ 73 million in damage.
1919 – In June, a tornado plows through Fergus Falls, killing 39.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh of Minnesota, was the first to fly alone across the Atlantic from New York to Paris, on May 20, on the plane ” Spirit of St. Louis “. The trip took 33 hours.
1931 – Ancient remains of a possibly up to 10,000 to 20,000 year old skeleton named ” Minnesota woman ” were found near Pelican Rapids, in Otter Tail County.
1933 – Amateur archaeologist William H. Jensen makes a paleo-Indian find in the Browns Valley, Traverse County, near Lake Agassiz Glacier, estimated to be from 8000-10,000 years old.
1934 – The infamous criminal John Dillinger spends barely a month in the Twin Cities, where he was involved in shootings, fleeing with cars in what was then considered the “sanctuary” for gangsters, Saint Paul, thanks to the O’Connor system. “, As Chief of Police John O ‘Connor had made a deal with criminals. They would get police protection if they checked in with him when they got to town, paid a small bribe, and promised not to do anything illegal in town. It made the city perfect for laundering money in, and storing stolen cases while the police looked the other way. Dillinger lived in Lincoln Court the apartments at 93 Lexington Pkwy (see here ) as the FBI arrives at the scene and the shootings begin. Dillinger is injured during the escape in a car and they managed to escape. He hides in Dr. Clayton May ‘s clinic at 1835 Park Av. S. in Minneapolis for 5 days before traveling to Indiana for a family reunion. See a timeline here.
1936 – The temperature stays below 0 degrees for a record 36 days.
1940 – A blizzard hits Minnesota, with over 40 cm in 24 hours, 49 dead, over $ 1.5 million in the cost of damaged properties.
1982 – Barely 87 cm of snow fell in the Twin Cities in 2 days.
1992 – Mall of America, the second largest shopping centers in the US, and one of the largest in the world, was inaugurated on August 11 in the suburbs of Minneapolis, the city of Bloomington.
1991 – Actor and former wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura is elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, MN until 1995.
1996 – The officially coldest temperature recorded in Minnesota can be measured near the city of Tower, with exactly -60 degrees, on February 2nd.
1999 – Jesse Ventura, became the 38th Governor of Minnesota – in the midst of a period of American politics ravaged by the scandal surrounding Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky – blasted the boulder outside the known parties and with his long hair through the sound barrier. Ventura surprisingly won the gubernatorial election in the otherwise handsome state of Minnesota. After a single period of stormy weather, the now 58-year-old man smoked out again in 2003.
2003 – An 18-year-old man is accused of being behind the MSBlast worm, which caused hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide to crash. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison on January 28, 2005. Read more here.
2005 – The Red Lake massacre takes place. on March 21 in the Red Lake Indian Reservation. 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather, who was a police officer on the reservation, and his girlfriend in their home. After taking Grandpa’s gun, Weise drove to his old school (a few months before), Red Lake Senior High School in the police car. There he shot and killed 7 and wounded 12 others, the dead included a security guard, a teacher and 5 students. After police arrived, there were shootings between them, and Weise was wounded and committed suicide in an empty classroom.
2007 – The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis suddenly collapsed on the evening of August 1, killing 7 people and injuring 145.
