Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing (> 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The term was coined by Minnesota State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell during his pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota owing to its superficial resemblance to iron-bearing rocks from the Taconic Mountains of New York, with which he was familiar.

The iron content of taconite, commonly present as finely dispersed magnetite, is generally 25 to 30%.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an abundance of iron ore of such high quality that taconite was considered an uneconomic waste product. By the end of World War II much of the high-grade iron ore in the United States had been exhausted and taconite became a new source of the metal.

To process taconite, the ore is ground into a fine powder, the magnetite is separated from the gangue by strong magnets, the powdered iron concentrate is combined with a binder such as bentonite clay and limestone as a flux and rolled into pellets about one centimeter in diameter that contain approximately 65% iron. The pellets are fired at a very high temperatures to harden them and make them durable. This is necessary to ensure that the blast furnace charge remains porous enough to allow heated gas to pass through and react with the pelletized ore. Firing the pellet oxidizes the magnetite (Fe₃O₄) to hematite (Fe₂O₃), an exothermic reaction that reduces the cost of pelletizing the concentrate. E. W. Davis of the University of Minnesota Mines Experiment Station is credited with developing the pelletizing process. Since the commercial development of this process in the Lake Superior region in the 1950s, the term taconite has been used globally to refer to iron ores amenable to upgrading by similar processes.

Charles Edward Wilson (November 18, 1886 in New York City - January 3, 1972 in Bronxville, New York) was a CEO of General Electric. He left school at age 12 to work as a stock boy at Sprague Electrical Works, which was acquired by General Electric, taking night classes and working up to president in 1939.

During World War II he served on the War Production Board as executive vice-chairman in September 1942, supervising the huge U.S. military production effort before resigning in August, 1944 after a bitter jurisdictional dispute with the military. After returning to General Electric and instituting an anti-union campaign, he served President Truman as the chairman of the blue-ribbon President's Committee on Civil Rights in 1946-1947, which recommended new civil rights legislation to protect "all parts of our population".

After returning to General Electric again, he left to become head of the new Office of Defense Mobilization in December, 1950, which took control of the U.S. economy, rationing raw materials to the civilian economy, a position so powerful that the press began calling him the "co-president". After being accused of backing big business, he resigned in March, 1952 after a bitter dispute with his own Wage Stabilization Board after it recommended wage increases for union steel workers without his knowledge, and he intervened to back the steel companies' demand for price increases to offset them, only to see Truman back the board. He then returned to General Electric briefly before becoming chairman of the board of W.R. Grace & Co. until his retirement in 1956, when he became president of the People-to-People Foundation, a non-partisan program promoting international friendship and understanding.

The Ojibwe (also Ojibwa or Ojibway) or Chippewa (also Chippeway) are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the second-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree. In the United States, they had the fourth-largest population among Native American tribes, surpassed only by Navajo, Cherokee and the Lakota. Because many Ojibwe were historically formerly located mainly around the outlet of Lake Superior, which the French colonists called Sault Ste. Marie, they referred to the Ojibwe as Saulteurs. Ojibwe who subsequently moved to the prairie provinces of Canada have retained the name Saulteaux. Ojibwe who were originally located about the Mississagi River and made their way to southern Ontario are known as the Mississaugas.

The Ojibwe peoples are a major component group of the Anishinaabe-speaking peoples, a branch of the Algonquian language family which includes the Algonquin, Nipissing, Oji-Cree, Odawa and the Potawatomi. The Ojibwe peoples number over 56,440 in the U.S., living in an area stretching across the northern tier from Michigan west to Montana.^{[citation needed]} Another 77,940 of main-line Ojibwe; 76,760 Saulteaux and 8,770 Mississaugas, in 125 bands, live in Canada, stretching from western Quebec to eastern British Columbia.^{[citation needed]} They are historically known for their crafting of birch bark canoes, sacred birch bark scrolls, use of cowrie shells for trading, cultivation of wild rice, and use of copper arrow points. In 1745 they adopted guns from the British to use to defeat and push the Dakota nation of the Sioux to the south.