Work in Minneapolis contributed to the computing industry, and the city is the birthplace of General Mills, the Pillsbury brand, Target Corporation, and Thermo King mobile refrigeration.

[26] In 1680, cleric Louis Hennepin, who was probably the first European to see the Minneapolis waterfall the Dakota people call Owámniyomni, renamed it the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua for his patron saint.

[35] In 1819, the US Army built Fort Snelling[36] to direct Native American trade away from British-Canadian traders and to deter war between the Dakota and Ojibwe in northern Minnesota.

In 1851, after a meeting of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature, leaders of east bank St. Anthony lost their bid to move the capital from Saint Paul, but they eventually won the state university.

[99] Disasters struck in the late 19th century: the Eastman tunnel under the river leaked in 1869; twice, fire destroyed the entire row of sawmills on the east bank;[100] an explosion of flour dust at the Washburn A mill killed eighteen people[101] and demolished about half the city's milling capacity;[102] and in 1893, fire spread from Nicollet Island to Boom Island to northeast Minneapolis, destroyed twenty blocks, and killed two people.

[118][k] Washburn and partner John Crosby[119] sent Austrian civil engineer William de la Barre to Hungary where he acquired innovations through industrial espionage.

[133] Minneapolis-Honeywell built a south Minneapolis campus where their experience regulating control systems earned them military contracts for the Norden bombsight and the C-1 autopilot.

[136] A highly successful business until disbanded in 1990, Control Data opened a facility in economically depressed north Minneapolis, bringing jobs and good publicity.

[139] Known initially as a kindly physician, mayor Doc Ames made his brother police chief, ran the city into crime, and tried to leave town in 1902.

Reporting on the local reaction, The New York Times said that "over three nights, a five-mile stretch of Minneapolis sustained extraordinary damage"[170]—destruction included a police station that demonstrators overran and set on fire.

[177] During the last glacial period, around 10,000 years ago, ice buried in these ancient river channels melted, resulting in basins that filled with water to become the lakes of Minneapolis.

[200] City leaders sought to increase the supply of housing so more neighborhoods would be affordable and to decrease the effects single-family zoning had caused on racial disparities and segregation.

[207][208][209] The Minneapolis area experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog.

[230] Minneapolis welcomed Italians and Greeks in the 1890s and 1900s,[231][232] and Slovak and Czech immigrants settled in the Bohemian Flats area on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

[236] Japanese Americans, many relocated from San Francisco, worked at Camp Savage, a secret military Japanese-language school that trained interpreters and translators.

[274] Before 1910,[153] when a developer wrote the first restrictive covenant based on race and ethnicity into a Minneapolis deed,[279] the city was relatively unsegregated with a Black population of less than one percent.

[288] The foundation laid by racial covenants on residential segregation, property value, homeownership, wealth, housing security, access to green spaces, and health equity shapes the lives of people in the 21st century.

[302] Edwin Hawley Hewitt designed St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral and Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, both of which are located south of downtown.

[323] McKim, Mead & White designed a vast complex meeting the ambitions of the founders for a cultural center with spaces for sculpture, an art school, and orchestra.

[328] The Northeast Minneapolis Arts District hosts 400 independent artists and a center at the Northrup-King building, and it presents the Art-A-Whirl open studio tour every May.

[352] In an era of music scenes,[353] 1980s Minneapolis was a hotbed for American underground rock alongside R&B, funk, and soul[354] thanks to the nightclub First Avenue and musicians like Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, and Prince.

[382] Appetite for Change closed its Minneapolis restaurant in 2023, opened a food truck, and received a grant from the Minnesota legislature to create a long-term home.

[389] Conceived in Minneapolis as a malted milkshake in candy form, the Milky Way bar of nougat, caramel, and chocolate was made in the North Loop neighborhood during the 1920s.

[418] In his book The American City: What Works, What Doesn't, Alexander Garvin wrote Minneapolis built "the best-located, best-financed, best-designed, and best-maintained public open space in America".

A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians[432] run parallel along the 51-mile (82 km) route of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway.

The Minneapolis departments of civil rights and public works report to the office which oversees communications and engagement; development, health, and livability; and internal operations.

[506] As of March 2024, Minnesota Newspaper Association members who publish in Minneapolis include Insight News, Finance & Commerce, Longfellow Nokomis Messenger, Minneapolis/St.

[517] Media Tales called Minnesota a "plentiful" source of national trade magazines; companies in Minneapolis publish Foodservice News and Franchise Times.

[547] In warm weather, Lime and Veo have shared electric bikes and scooters for rent at sixty mobility hubs located on transit lines; riders may end their trip anywhere in the city.

[576][577] The Mashkiki Waakaa'igan Pharmacy—funded by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa—dispenses free prescription drugs and culturally sensitive care to members of any federally recognized tribes living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, regardless of insurance status.