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Rick Nolan

American politician (1943–2024)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ2151594 ↗
Source-derived summary

Richard Michael Nolan (December 17, 1943 – October 18, 2024) was an American politician and businessman who served as the U.S. representative from Minnesota's 8th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. He previously served as the U.S. representative from Minnesota's 6th congressional district between 1975 and 1981 and was also a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1969 until 1973.

After re-entering politics in 2011, he was nominated to challenge first-term incumbent Republican Chip Cravaack in the 8th district, defeating him on November 6, 2012. Nolan was re-elected in 2014 and 2016.

Nolan's 32-year gap between terms in Congress is the second-longest such break in service (after Philip Francis Thomas's 34-year gap from 1841 to 1875) in American political history. On February 9, 2018, Nolan announced he would retire from Congress at the end of his current term. Nolan ran for Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota as the running mate of Attorney General of Minnesota Lori Swanson in the 2018 gubernatorial election. They were defeated in the August primary by Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan.

Early life and education

Nolan was born in Brainerd, Minnesota, and graduated from Brainerd High School in 1962. His aunt was an attorney and judge, whom Nolan called his "biggest political influence growing up." He attended St.

Editorial summary

“Rick Nolan” enters the record as american politician (1943–2024). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rick, Nolan and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1943, 2024, 2013, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1943-12-17. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Rick, Nolan and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Rick Nolan” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rick, Nolan and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2151594. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2024, 2013 and 2019.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Rick Nolan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Rick Nolan primary sources, Rick Nolan archive and Rick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rick Nolan”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Rick Nolan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.