On this date in 1931, Floyd Bjornsterne Olson takes office as the 22nd Governor of the State of Minnesota and the first representing the Democratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) party. Born in 1891 in North Minneapolis, he graduated from the city’s North High School in 1909. He earned a law degree from Northwestern College of Law in […]
Politics
1890-01-02
Hjalmar Petersen is born in Eskildstrup on the island of Fyn in Denmark. A veteran country-newspaper editor, he would serve as the state’s governor for four months in 1936 and 1937 (the shortest gubernatorial term in Minnesota history), following the death in office of Floyd B. Olson. Petersen died on March 29, 1968, while vacationing in […]
1816-11-29
On this date in 1816, Henry M. Rice is born in Waitsfield, Vermont. At twenty-three he would become a sutler at Fort Snelling, running a concessionary store that sold sundry items to the soldiers. Rice would also enter the political arena, encouraging Congress to define the state’s boundaries and serving as one of Minnesota’s first […]
1850-11-28
On this date in 1850, Aaron Goodrich, Minnesota Territory’s first supreme court justice, is accused of adultery. An effort to impeach him fails, but President Millard Fillmore exercises his executive power to remove Goodrich from office in 1851. (MNopedia)
1908-11-12
On this date in 1908, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun is born in Nashville, Illinois. Blackmun grew up in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of Saint Paul and attended Van Buren Elementary School along with future Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, with whom he would serve on the Supreme Court for some sixteen years.
