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- Minnesota has more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.
- Minneapolis has the fourth most active jazz scene in the country.
- The license plates say “Land of 10,000 Lakes” but actually there are 11,842 lakes more than 10 acres in size in Minnesota.
- Duluth, Minnesota is the largest inland freshwater port in the world.
- The Mall of America in Bloomington is the size of 78 football fields — 9.5 million square feet.
- The first open heart surgery and the first bone marrow transplant in the United States were done at the University of Minnesota.
- Water skis were invented in 1922 by Ralph W. Samuelson, who steam-bent 2 eight-foot-long pine boards into skis. He took his first ride behind a motorboat on Lake Pepin, a widening of the Mississippi River at Lake City.
- Rollerblades were the first commercially successful in-line roller skates. Minnesota students Scott and Brennan Olson invented them in 1980. Their design was an ice hockey boot with 3 inline wheels instead of a blade.
- Author Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
- In 1898, the Kensington Runestone was found on a farm near Alexandria. The Kensington Runestone carvings allegedly tell of a journey of a band of Vikings in 1362. Go to the Runestone Museum and judge for yourself
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