Year	Event	Citation
Unknown	The Great Herring War A war between the two families controlled the most fertile herring waters off the coast of Norway, the Lindstroms and the Johanssons. They thought it would be in their best interest to band together. They couldn’t agree on what to do with the herring, the possibilities are overwhelming. The Johanssons wanted to pickle the herring and the Lindstroms wanted to train them for the circus.	GG S01/E25
Unknown	The founding of St. Olaf St Olaf is a Norwegian farming settlement in northern Minnesota that was founded by Heinrich von Anderdonnen, a Norwegian immigrant who was known as the first person to can tuna in its own natural juices. The town celebrates von Anderdonnen each year with a parade where townsfolk dress as cans of tuna and jars of mayonnaise.	GG S01/E24
1929	The Great Beer Nut Shortage of 1929 St. Olaf went through an event that would later be known as The Great Beer Nut Shortage of 1929. We don’t know much, but it is safe to assume that St. Olaf suffered a critical shortage of beer nuts.	GG S03/E02
1930’s	The town dentist & librarian. Ernest T. Minky was the town’s only dentist. He was also the town librarian. His office was in the library and he would do both jobs at the same time. Everyone hated Minky. He seemed to enjoy giving other people pain. They hated him so much, nobody ever went to the dentist or the library. The standard check-out time for a book was one hour because Mr. Minky believed that “books belong in a library”. The way one could tell if someone was from St. Olaf was if they were illiterate and had teeth like Indian corn.	GG S02/E04
1938	Near fatality involving the town’s librarian. Rose Lindstrom went to check out a book from the library, and Ernest’s tie got caught in the checkout machine. Rose used her Girl Scout knife to cut his tie off. As thanks for saving his life, Ernest let Rose check out her book for a whole week.	GG S02/E04
Late 1942	WWII efforts St Olaf wanted to fund the development of a top-secret weapon that they were sure would end the war – attack cows.	GG S06/E03
1943	WWII Submarine Production By 1943, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. was commissioning submarines at an accelerated pace, submarine production surged to support wartime efforts. The Navy came to St. Olaf asking the town to make three submarines for a million dollars. Finneas Wigler got the contract after boasting he could make 100 for $500,000. However, when the Navy returned the next year, Finneas had made a hundred hoagie heroes for $500,000.	GG S03/E12
Between 1943-1945	St Olaf planned to drop highly trained killer attack cows behind the enemy lines. It wasn’t until the cows were airborn that they realized a cow can’t pull a ripcord. However, the project wasn’t a total failure, because Germans hate messes.	GG S06/E03
1945	Big Monkey Trial Mrs. Ingovar’s monkey somehow got hold of a typewriter. He got a little lucky, and typed out a self-help book called Healing the Monkey Within. Fortunately, they were able to find a jury of his peers, or they would have convicted the wrong big monkey. Everybody wanted to see that trial. They were sitting on each other’s laps, there were so many people that they had to double up. He was found guilty of intelligence, so the townspeople shaved him. It turned out OK, though, because Mrs. Ingovar became rich Passing him off at carnivals as a man from mars.	GP E05
After April 1945	It is believed that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun faked their death on April 30, 1945, in his bunker in Berlin, Germany the day after they got married. After that Adolf and Eva went to St Olaf. Eva was Rose’s P.E. teacher, Hitler changed his name to Fritz Stickelmeyer, and was Rose’s history teacher. They were part of a nefarious plot by the Germans to teach misinformation so America’s youth would be really stupid when the Germans invaded. St. Olaf was the first town chosen for their experiment.	GG S04/E01
1949	The Great St. Olaf Herring Scare of ’49. The legend involves Engmar Spangenhausen devising a scheme to spin herring into gold. It was successful until people started questioning why their watches smelled like fish.	N S01/E09
1949	The Drought of ’49 St. Olaf was home to a family of Eskimos. At one point the family borrowed all of the ice trays in town to build an addition above their garage. In 1949, St. Olaf was stricken with a terrible drought, and the family ended up saving the town when their addition melted as a result of the heat.	GG S03/E20
1951	New Rules for St. Olaf beauty pageant In 1951 humans were allowed to compete in the St. Olaf beauty pageant for the first time . Rose Nylund was one of the first human competitors. Rose and others faced unique challenges in events such as an evening gown and log-rolling competition.	GG S05/E18
1952	Stonehengeland Opening Stonehengeland opened in 1952. At that same time St. Olaf’s most active volcano threatened to erupt, scaring the town. A group of Shriners were in town for the opening, and they pretended to be druid priests and offered to stop the eruption by sacrificing the town’s dumbest virgin. In the excitement of the moment, Rose Nylund raised her hand. The shriners told her that the only way to prevent the eruption was for her to crawl through their legs, up the volcano, while they gave her birthday whacks.	GG S05/E19
1960’s	Parking Rules The controversial issue that nearly tore the town apart was opposite-side-of-the-street parking. Nobody could understand the concept. It doesn’t matter which side you park on, there’s always an opposite side.	GG S05/E18
1970’s	Beautician Crisis After St. Olaf’s beautician left, the town struggled. Women started giving each other home perms. Soon, everybody looked like Art Garfunkel. Husbands stopped sleeping with their wives, the population started to go down. The town would have gone under if Oslo’s most famous hairstylist, Vidal Sassbogadotter hadn’t relocated his shop to St. Olaf because of their more favorable tax laws.	GG S02/E20
1990	War Bond Return Blanche Devereaux returned a large surplus of war bonds that she found in a box of junk she bought from Rose. The townspeople were so grateful, they built a statue dedicated to Blanche in Mrs. Olsen Square.	GG S06/E03

GG – Golden Girls / GP – Golden Palace / EN – Empty Nest / N – Nurses

St. Olafisms / St Olaf Menu / St Olaf People / St Olaf Culture / St Olaf History / St Olaf Geography