What You can have a Player Character that's a minotaur?

 Both minotaurs and centaurs have been printed as a playable race twice. The first time was in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, which was published almost 2 years ago in November of 2018. The second time was in Mythic Odyssey of Theros from earlier this year.

Oh. I just started.......... I just joined this thread because it was about fantasy........ I haven't read any of the D&D books other than the player's handbook.......

Quote from RangerTwoBlades >>

Oh. I just started.......... I just joined this thread because it was about fantasy........ I haven't read any of the D&D books other than the player's handbook.......

 It’s cool 😊. I bought a bunch of old Dragonlance books online and they have Minotaurs as a playable race on both continents.

Dragonlance? Yes! ANOTHER FAN OTHER THAN MY DAD!

Quote from RangerTwoBlades >>

Dragonlance? Yes! ANOTHER FAN OTHER THAN MY DAD!

 It’s really cool 😊, though I’ve only read a few of the novels and a couple game sourcebooks. My friend who used to play back then said they called it soap opera D&D. I hope they bring it back for 5e.

No, the Dragonborn race, I think some of the elves, and all of the dragon types are based off of the Dragonlance series/universe. My introduction to Dragonlance was one of the Dragon Codex books, the "Red Dragon Codex".

Hmmm, not sure about the Dragonborn thing. But I’ve never read Red Dragon Codex. First Dragonlance book I ever read was Dragons of Summer Flame.

The Silvanesti are grey elves, Qualinesti are high elves and Kagonesti are wild elves. There are aquatic elves too but I forget what they’re called. No drow though.

And all of that I meant is in the basic rules. Also, did they just add a ton of new races? Like three? Kobold, half orc, and goblin.

New races? Um...

Kender (like halflings but they look like tweens with pointed ears)

Draconians (sort of like the prototype for Dragonborn but they’re all evil and kinda dumb. And I think they’re all male too. Not my fave race and definitely not playable as PCs.)

The other Dragonlance races are all basically new interpretations of standard D&D races. At least as far as I’ve read. I never read the Codex series. No kobolds or orcs, but there are goblins and hobgoblins.

No, I was creating a character yesterday, and I saw three new races. Kobold, Goblin, and something else........ Wait, yesterday, I could have sworn that they were there............... Now they're gone.........

and Kenders are funny.a

Kobold and Goblins were added in Volo's guide as a playable race. From half-orc maybe you mean just a full orc or hobgoblins? They was also added in Volo's guide. 

Quote from RangerTwoBlades >>

And all of that I meant is in the basic rules. Also, did they just add a ton of new races? Like three? Kobold, half orc, and goblin.

 Half-Orcs are in the Basic Rules and are free for all users. (Technically, they're found in the System Reference Document, which is also free, but D&D Beyond considers that part of the Basic Rules.) 

Over the last few months, errata was published for Goliaths, Kobolds, Orcs, and Tritons. Goliaths can be found, among other places, in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion; which was a free supplement so it's free here, too. Its release coincided with the Elemental Evil storyline for Adventurer's League and the hardcover module Princes of the Apocalypse.

As for the history of Dragonborn, that's a long and windy road. Dragonlance had Draconians, but there were also Dragonkin (Forgotten Realms) and Dray (Dark Sun). There might be more, I'm not sure. The term Dragonborn wasn't used until 3rd edition, or maybe 3.5, and they're closer to the Half-Dragon template found today in the Monster Manual. There was a 3/3.5 book, Races of the Dragon, that had a bunch of other options. Can't remember all of them.

Dragonborn, as they exist now, was born out of 4th edition. 

All right, then. I think I might have accidentally glitched my computer into accepting that I had Volo's Guide to Monsters, which I do not have on D&D Beyond.

wOW. I am amazed by the amount of people on here that know so much about D&D.

And I saw Tritons too............. Are they mer-people?

Can someone list the playable races and reference the book that established this?  Here is a start ...

Player's Handbook:

Dwarves: Mountain and Hill

Dragonborn

Elves: Dark Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves

Gnomes: Forest, Rock

Half-Elves

Half-Orcs

Halflings

Humans: Standard and Variant

Tieflings

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire Genasi

Free Materials

Basic Rules: Dwarf (Hill, Mountain), Elf (High, Wood), Halfling (Lightfoot, Stout), Human
Elemental Evil Player's Companion: Aaracokra, Genasi, Gnome (Deep), Goliath
System Reference Document: Dragonborn, Gnome (Rock), Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Human (Variant), Tiefling

Sourcebooks

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes: Elf (Eladrin, Sea, Shadar-Kai), various Tieflings
Player's Handbook: Elf (Dark), Gnome (Forest)
Volo's Guide to Monsters: Bugbear, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kenku, Kobold, Orc, Tabaxi, Triton, Yuan-Ti Pureblood

Setting Books

Eberron-Rising from the Last War: Changeling, Kalashtar, Shifter, Warforged, various Dragonmarks
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount: Dragonborn (Draconblood, Ravenite), Elf (Pallid), Halfling (Lotusden)
Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica: Centaur, Loxodon, Minotaur, Simic Hybrid, Vedalken
Mythic Odyssey of Theros: Leonin, Saytr
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: Dwarf (Gray)

Miscellaneous

One Grung Above: Grung
The Tortle Package: Tortle

This is where each sub/race first appeared, Many have been reprinted and can be found in those respective books. However, if you're looking to buy them on D&D Beyond then you can only get them in the original text.

Technically, variant humans are first mentioned as an option in the Basic Rules. But there are no feats for them until the SRD.