2011 marks the 50th anniversary of major leagues sports in Minnesota. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports, the arrival of the Twins and the Vikings to the state helped transform Minnesota from flyover country to an entertainment destination.

In 1968, Eugene McCarthy, a Democratic Senator from Minnesota, mobilized an army of anti-war youth to help him in his bid for president. Though Republican Richard M. Nixon won the election, MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us McCarthy made political history by tapping into the growing opposition to the Vietnam war and bringing hippies into the mainstream of American politics.

When Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, and five others died in a plane crash on the Iron Range on October 25, 2002, then-Senator Wellstone was in a difficult race for re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate. MN90 producer Marisa Helms takes a look at Wellstone before he was a famous politician, and what has become of his legacy.

Minneapolis native Prince Rogers Nelson, became mega musical star Prince. Along the way, he created the Minneapolis Sound, and won several Grammies, and an Oscar for his semi- autobiographical album and film, Purple Rain. He has also written, performed, and produced numerous hit records. In 2010, he received BET’s Lifetime Achievement Award. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us that despite his success, Prince remains rooted in Minneapolis, and has become one of the state’s cultural icons.

You hardly ever hear about kids writing in diaries anymore because paper and pencils seem to have been replaced by computers and text messages. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms explains, the technology that makes it easier for our children to communicate may be destroying their legacies.

If you didn’t grow up in Minnesota, it can be a shock to spend your first winter here. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us that in 1849, Minnesota’s first territorial governor, Alexander Ramsey, moved to Saint Paul then promptly left for business in Washington. That winter, Ramsey’s bitterly cold wife, Anna, sent her husband a scathing letter, telling him 22 below zero is not a temperature she can live with.

Minnesota is one of a few states in the country where third party candidates do well. MN90 producer Marisa Helms shows us that the success of third party candidates is attributed to a supportive public financing system, and being in the right place at the right time. Disenchantment with the major parties helps, too.

During the 1950s, residents in small towns around Minnesota knew little about just how important they were to Cold War defense. In fact, Farmington, Isanti, and Saint Bonifacius, Minnesota, were all home to Army installations holding deadly nuclear missiles. MN90 producer Marisa Helms takes a look at how the city of Saint Bonifacius is memorializing its role in Cold War history.

Ojibwe Chief Hole in the Day the Younger (1827-1868) signed almost every land cession treaty between the Minnesota Ojibwe and the U.S. government. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports that while the Chief was a controversial figure, he was also a very smart and effective negotiator. Still, the Chief had many enemies. On June 27, 1868, as he was traveling to Washington, D.C. to fight the removal of his people to a reservation at White Earth. Hole in the Day was assassinated by Ojibwe men from Leech Lake just a few miles from his home in Crow Wing.

Muslims in Minnesota come from diverse cultural backgrounds. The majority of the approximately 150,000 Muslims in the state are from African and Arab countries and the Indian subcontinent. MN90 producer Marisa Helms discovers that no matter where followers of Islam immigrated from, they are all united by their faith, and the celebration of the Islamic holiday Eid Al-Adha, the festival of Abraham.

In the 1960s, standing up against oppression, racism and sexism was the route to empowerment for many Americans. It was in this context of social change that the American Indian Movement, or AIM, was born in Minneapolis in 1968. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports while AIM’s methods have changed, the organization lives on in its support of health, educational and housing resources run by and for Indians.

When the Civil War started in 1861, Minnesota’s governor Alexander Ramsey became the first Northern governor to officially promise troops to fight for the Union Army. At the time, Minnesota – the state -- was just three years old. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us that Ramsey happened to be in Washington, DC, the day the war broke out. Eager to prove Minnesota’s mettle, he promised 1,000 soldiers to the war effort. By the time the war ended in 1865, Minnesota had furnished 25-thousand soldiers to the Union Army, an extraordinary number for a state so young and sparsely populated. More than 2,500 Minnesota soldiers died fighting Civil War battles.

Minnesotan Gordon Parks (1912-2006) became famous as the director of the 1971 hit film, Shaft. The blockbuster broke racial boundaries in the detective genre, featuring a Black actor in the lead. But Parks was more than a filmmaker. He had several careers. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us Parks was a self-made man and a self-taught musician, poet, and novelist. He was also the first African American photographer and essayist for Life Magazine, where he worked for nearly a quarter century. Photo: Gordon Parks, self-portrait, 1945, Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation.

Minnesotan Charles A. Lindbergh, Junior, was the twentieth century’s first international celebrity – a tall, photogenic aviator who soared into the spotlight in 1927 when he was the first to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic from New York to Paris. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reminds us that overall, Lindbergh’s life was far from lucky. His first son was kidnapped and murdered, and his reputation as a Nazi sympathizer has recently eclipsed his earlier fame as an aviator.

Minnesota natives Joel and Ethan Coen are two of the most original, creative filmmakers working today. Their Academy-award winning 1996 film Fargo, put Minnesota on the cinematic map. Since their first noir thriller, 1984’s Blood Simple, the Coens have released about a dozen quirky, totally unique, films. Their 2009 film, A Serious Man, was based on their childhood growing up Jewish in 1960s St. Louis Park. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports, the Coen Brothers are true Minnesota originals.

Minneapolis was a notorious anti-union town in the early 1900s. But a series of truckers’ strikes in 1934 turned the city into one of the most powerful union cities in the United States. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports that the strikes were part of a wave of union actions across the country and spurred passage of the 1935 Wagner Act. The federal legislation legitimated and enforced the rights of workers and unions.

When enterprising Wilford Fawcett came home to Robbinsdale, MN, after World War I, he thought it would be good business to publish the dirty jokes he heard in the trenches overseas. He called his magazine "Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang" and it became a huge success. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us Fawcett made a small fortune off of his bawdy humor magazine and went on to build a publishing empire of hobby magazines and comic books, including Captain Marvel.

Seth Eastman was a soldier and an artist stationed at Fort Snelling in the 1830s and the 1840s. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports, Eastman’s greatest contribution to history was his accurate and un-romanticized depictions of Dakota and Ojibwe people in the area of the Fort during the 1840s. Because Eastman took an anthropological view in his art, today’s historians can learn about American Indian practices and cultural artifacts from the era.

When Elizabeth Quinlan (1863-1947) opened her five-story department store on Nicollet Avenue in downtown Minneapolis in 1926, the fashion trade magazine “Women’s Wear Daily” proclaimed it “the most beautiful women’s specialty store in America.” MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us that Quinlan was a remarkable businesswoman and fashion visionary who first made history in 1895 when she became the first merchant to open a women’s specialty store west of the Mississippi.

Today, Minnesota is home to just over 100,000 people of Italian heritage. Italian immigrants began arriving in the state in the late 1800s and early 1900s. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports that, like other immigrant groups, Italians came to Minnesota looking for opportunity and brought with them old world traditions, including music, wine and food.

Seymour Cray (1925-1996) led the design of the world’s first commercial supercomputer in the late 1950s. By the 1970s, his company, Cray Research, based in Minneapolis and Chippewa Falls, Wisc., was the world’s leading maker of supercomputers. Cray’s machines were known for their elegance and simplicity, but most of all for their speed. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us Cray was known as a quirky genius whose innovations changed the world of supercomputing forever.

In Warroad and Roseau, located along Minnesota’s cold, northern border, it’s all about hockey, pretty much all the time. And for at least 60 years or so, one of the hottest tickets during high school hockey season is watching the Warroad Warriors square off against the neighboring Roseau Rams. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us, both communities’ commitment to hockey and strong leadership on the high school teams has paid off. Year after year since the 1950s, Roseau and Warroad have produced some of the best hockey players in the country, from Olympic contenders to NHL standouts.

In June, 1886, Taylors Falls, Minnesota, was the site of what is still called the “mother of all logjams.” For weeks, the annual log drive down the St. Croix River was moving slowly because water levels were unusually low. But then, everything changed overnight. As MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us, a perfect storm of rainfall and bad timing hurled those logs, destined for mills downstream, into the biggest log jam anybody had ever seen, then or since.

The one million acres of land and water bordering Minnesota and Canada called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, or BWCA, began to be set aside for preservation purposes in 1902. And since then, further regulations have brought more restrictions, drawing the ire of industrialists and others who advocate for development, motorized traffic, and other uses of the area. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us that each year, more than 200,000 people visit the Boundary Waters, and while controversy continues to this day, the BWCA has become one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United States.

These days, fashion trends come and go with the seasons. But at least one fad – the beaver hat – remained popular with Europeans for a couple of centuries; from 1650 to 1850. The long lasting fashion craze led to the extinction of Europe’s beaver population. But the animal was plentiful in North America and White settlers saw an opportunity to do business overseas. They created companies and a fur trade economy throughout North America and in the Minnesota territory. Over the years, they shipped millions of beaver pelts to Europe. The fur trade also had a major – and mixed – impact on American Indians who hunted the beavers, then traded the pelts to fur companies in exchange for fabrics, axes, guns, and knives, but also for alcohol, which had a detrimental effect on Indian populations. MN90 producer Marisa Helms reports.