In 1927, both Karl and Mary Mundt received Master of Arts degrees from Columbia University following four years of summer study there.

[3] In 1936, Mundt was the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in South Dakota's 1st congressional district, losing in a Democratic year to Fred H. Hildebrandt.

On November 23, 1969, Mundt suffered a severe stroke and was subsequently unable to attend sessions of Congress, although he received extensive speech and physical therapy.

His wife, Mary, led his staff in Mundt's place and refused calls for the crippled Senator to resign.

Mundt was stripped of his committee assignments by the Senate Republican Conference in 1972, but he remained in office through the end of his term on January 3, 1973.

Karl Mundt died in Washington, D.C. in 1974 of a heart ailment and was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Madison, South Dakota.

In 1925, Bruno E. Jacob founded the National Forensic League, a high school organization promoting speech and debate activities.

It featured 55 high school (mostly) seniors in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as representatives of the (then) 48 states and seven territories in a "mock" constitutional convention.

One of the principal characters of the Coen brothers' 1991 film Barton Fink is a traveling salesman named Karl Mundt, played by actor John Goodman.