Minnesota Renaissance Festival Andrew Butitta via flickr

Today there are Renaissance Festivals around the country, among them the Minnesota festival, which this year marks its 40th anniversary.

The first renaissance festival actually took place in the backyard of a Laurel Canyon home in southern California, in 1963. It was put on by Phyllis Patterson, a school teacher, as an event for her classroom. Later that year, Patterson and her husband Ron, hosted another festival to help raise money for the fledgling public radio station KPFK.

In 1975, the Minnesota event was just getting started.

In this report, Minnesota Public Radio reporter Margaret Moos takes in its sights and sounds.

Judging from the sound of this story, the Minnesota Renaissance Festival may have only been five years old, but it was running like a well-oiled machine.

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