Timeline Chicago
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Chicago was founded by Jean Baptiste Pointe
du Sable, a black man from Haiti. He was a pioneer trader.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1674 Dec 4,
Father Marquette built the 1st dwelling at what is now Chicago.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1675 May 18, Jacques Marquette
(37), Jesuit, missionary in Chicago, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1772 Jun 6, Haitian explorer Jean
Baptiste-Pointe DuSable settled Chicago. [see Mar 12, 1773]
(MC, 6/6/02)
1773 Mar 12, Jeanne Baptiste
Pointe de Sable settled what is now known as Chicago. [see Jun 6, 1772]
(MC, 3/12/02)
1800 Jean Baptiste Pointe du
Sable, a pioneer trader, sold his holdings and moved to a Missouri farm.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1804 Fort Dearborn was erected on
the Chicago River on the site of present-day downtown Chicago. With the
outbreak of the War of 1812, the garrison of 67 soldiers, their
dependents and settlers were ordered to evacuate to Fort Wayne. Most of
them were massacred en route by Potawatomi Indians, who then burned the
fort. Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1816 and around it grew the
settlement that would become Chicago. Abandoned in 1837, Fort Dearborn
was demolished in 1856.
(HNQ, 2/13/00)
1818 Aug 28, Jean Baptiste Pointe
du Sable, trader, founder of Chicago, died.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1830 Aug 4, Plans for the city of
Chicago were laid out.
(AP, 8/4/97)
1831 Robert A. Kinzie paid $127.68
for 102 acres of land that became much of Chicago.
(SFC, 2/26/00, p.B3)
1833 Aug 12, Chicago incorporated
as a village of about 350.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago)
1835 Aug 18, The last Potawatomi
Indians left Chicago.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1836 Three Chicago commissioners
wrote that what is now Grant Park should be “Public Ground – A Common
to Remain Forever Open, Clear and Free of any Buildings, or other
Obstruction Whatever.” Aaron Montgomery Ward later used this statement
to keep developers off the 320-acre lake-front property.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.34)
1837 Mar 4, The Illinois state
legislature granted a city charter to Chicago.
(AP, 3/4/99)
1847 Jun 10, Chicago Tribune began
publishing.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1847 The population of Chicago
numbered about 20,000 people.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.4)
1848 Jun 10, The 1st telegraph
link between NYC & Chicago was established.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1848 The Chicago Board of Trade
(CBOT) began trading grain futures. [see Jun 10,1848]
(Econ, 9/20/03, p.68)
1848 A canal was completed that
linked the Chicago River to the Illinois River.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.4)
1850 Jul 20, John Graves Shedd,
president of Marshall Field and Company, was born. He was the first
Chicago merchant to give his employees a half-day off on Saturdays.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1850 Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884)
partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker in forming the
North-Western Police Agency, later known as the Pinkerton Agency. "We
never sleep" was their motto. The company’s emblem—a wide open
eye—inspired the term "private eye. In 1999 the agency was sold to a
Swedish company, Securitas AB.
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug25.html)(HNQ,
8/7/98)(SFC, 2/23/99, p.C4)
1850 The population of Chicago
approached 30,000.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.12)
1850s Polish immigrants began
arriving in Chicago as job opportunities abounded.
(WSJ, 6/2/03, p.A1)
1855 Marshall Field (21) moved to
Chicago from Pittsfield, Mass. Potter Palmer, owner of a retail and
wholesale operation, later sold his business to Marshall Field and
bookkeeper Levi Z. Leiter. In 1947 John Tebbel authored "The Marshall
Fields: A Study in Wealth." In 2002 Axel Madsen authored "The Marshall
Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty."
(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.D8)
1855-1875 The "raising of Chicago" took place. The
town, built on mud, had begun to sink and forced new foundations and
new drainage lines. The work was hailed as one of the wonders of the
19th century.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, Z1 p.2)
1860 May 16, Chicago: Republican
convention selected Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1860 Sep 6, Jane Addams (d.1935),
known for her work as a social reformer, pacifist, and founder of Hull
House in Chicago in 1889, first American woman to receive the Nobel
Peace Prize (1931), was born. "The essence of immorality is the
tendency to make an exception of one’s self." "You do not know what
life means when all the difficulties are removed! I am simply smothered
and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the
first thing in the morning."
(AHD, 1971, p.15)(AP, 8/28/97)(HN, 9/6/98)(AP,
10/4/98)
1861 Mayor John Wentworth fired
all the 60 policemen, 3 sergeants and 1 captain as his last official
act. For 12 hours the city was without police as the Board of
Commissioners worked to replace them.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)
1864 Aug 28, The Democratic
National Convention began in Chicago. General George B. McClellan's
campaign platform called the war in America a failure. [see Aug 31]
(WSJ, 9/25/03, p.A18)
1864 Aug 31, At the Democratic
convention in Chicago, General George B. McClellan was nominated for
president.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1865 Apr 20, Chicago's Crosby
Opera House opened.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1865 Spiegel began as a Chicago
home-furnishing store. It branched into mail order for rural customers
in 1905 and abandoned its retail outlets in 1954. In 1982 it was
purchased by the German Otto family.
(WSJ, 3/2/04, p.A6)
1866 Nov 30, Work in Chicago
began on 1st US underwater highway tunnel.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1866 Dec 6, Chicago water supply
tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed. In the late 1800s the city
reversed the water flow of the Chicago River so that it flow in from
Lake Michigan and carry pollution out to drain into the Mississippi.
(MC, 12/6/01)(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C12)
1867 Sep 5, The first shipment of
cattle left Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1868 May 20, The Republican
National Convention met in Chicago and nominated Grant.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1868 In Chicago the 1st Marshall
Field’s store opened at Washington and State Street under the name
Field, Leiter & Co. in a building owned by Potter Palmer. The
building was destroyed in the great fire of 1871.
(http://chicago.urban-history.org/sites/d_stores/fields.htm)(WSJ,
9/21/05, p.A16)
1870 The population of Chicago
reached 300,000.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.12)
1871 Oct 8, Around 9 p.m. on
Sunday a fire broke out in or near Patrick and Catherine O'Leary's barn
in the crowded southwestern section of Chicago. Fanned by high winds,
the fire burned out of control in the tinder-dry city for more than 24
hours, until rain on Tuesday morning finally extinguished the flames.
Three and a half square miles were leveled wiping out one-third of the
city. The business district, the courthouse and the central water
pumping station, burned to the ground. Thousands of Chicagoans fled the
flames over the Randolph Street Bridge. Approximately 250 people were
killed in the fire; 98,500 people were left homeless; 17,450 buildings
were destroyed. The original Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed.
Yet in spite of the devastation, the city was so quickly rebuilt that
by 1875, few traces of the fire remained. Many people still believe
that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern which started the fire.
The Chicago City Council once passed a resolution exonerating the cow
and apologizing to the O'Leary family. Pegleg O’Sullivan kicked over a
lantern after breaking into the O’Leary dairy barn to steal milk for a
whiskey punch party.
(HNPD, 10/8/98)(HN, 10/8/98)(MC, 10/8/01)(SFC,
1/11/03, p.D6)
1871 Oct 8, The 1938 film "In Old
Chicago," with Tyrone Power and Alice Faye, was a musical that built up
to the Chicago fire.
(HFA, ‘96, p.40)(Hem., 7/95, p.83)(AP, 10/8/97)(TVM,
1975, p.276)(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.C8)
1871 Oct 11, The Great Chicago
Fire was finally extinguished after 3 days. Over 300 were killed. [see
Oct 8]
(MC, 10/11/01)
1871 Edward Roos founded a lathe
works in Chicago where he produced chests and other products. A younger
Edward Roos founded his own firm in 1916.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.G5)
1872 Oct 9, Aaron Montgomery Ward
(1844-1913), a young traveling salesman of dry goods, started his
mail-order business. The catalog of Aaron Montgomery Ward was the first
to be called a "Wish Book." The 1871 Chicago fire had destroyed his
initial inventory.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Montgomery_Ward)(SFC, 7/8/97,
p.A1)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A12)
1873 In Chicago bonds were issued
for the Saginaw & Canada Railroad Co. The operation built 40 miles
of track and went broke in 1876. The worthless bonds were later found
and given to the Public Museum of Grand Rapids in 1992, where they were
sold in the gift shop for $22.95. Scam artists acquired a large
quantity in bulk and sold them as real bonds to investors for a total
scam of some $12 million.
(WSJ, 2/25/99, p.A1,8)
1873 Adam Schaaf opened a piano
company in Chicago. Pianos were made at his 6-story building on Wabash
Ave until 1926.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.G6)
1875 Sep 1, Edgar Rice Burroughs,
novelist, was born in Chicago. He created Tarzan, the Ape Man.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1876 Apr 25, The Chicago Cubs beat
Louisville 4-0 (1st NL shutout) in the 1st NL game.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1877 In Chicago 17 businessmen
founded their Commercial Club.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.12)
1879 Aug 12, The 1st National
Archery Association tournament was held in Chicago.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1879 Armour & Co., a Chicago
meat processor founded in the 1860s, introduced canned meats. Canned
condensed milk was introduced in 1912. The “Armour’s Star” trademark
was first used in 1931.
(SFC, 8/2/06, p.G7)
1880 Jul 30, Robert Rutherford
("Colonel") McCormick, US, editor, publisher (Chicago Tribune), was
born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1880 George M. Pullman established
his own industrial community at Lake Calumet, south of Chicago. His
company town provided homes for 2,500 workers along with schools, parks
churches and a hotel.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A3)
1881 Sep 18, The Chicago Tribune
reported on a televideo experiment.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1881 Marshall Field (47) bought
out his partner and renamed their Chicago’s State Street store from
Field, Leiter & Co. to Marshall Field & Co.
(WSJ, 9/21/05, p.A16)
1882 May 20, Henrik Ibsen's
"Ghosts" (Gengangere) premiered in Chicago.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1882 Oct 18, Alexander Graham Bell
made his historic telephone call to the mayor of Chicago.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.13)
1982 Anthony Porter was convicted
of shooting to death an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman. He was
sentenced to death and spent 16 years on death row until 1999, when
Prof. David Protess and journalism students found a witness who
identified her ex-husband, Alstory Simnon, as the killer.
(SFC, 2/5/99, p.A3)
1882 Electric streetcars began
running and created havoc with the telephone system.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.13)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance
telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York. [see
Mar 27, 1884]
(AP, 3/23/97)
1883 Jun 2, Chicago's "El" opened
to traffic.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1883 Jun 9, The 1st commercial
electric railway line began operation Chicago.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1884 May 1, Construction began on
the first steel-skeleton skyscraper, a 10-story structure in Chicago,
designed by William Le Baron Jenney and built by the Home Insurance Co.
of New York. It was completed in 1885. It stood 9 stories and had 2
added in 1891.
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(SFEC, 11/22/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 5/1/99)
1884 Jul 1, Allan Pinkerton
(b.1819) founder of the Pinkerton Agency, died in Chicago. In 1996
James Mackay authored “Allan Pinkerton.”
(http://aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=918)(ON,
7/06, p.12)
1886 May 1, A labor strike began
across the US to support an 8-hour work day.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAspies.htm)
1886 May 3, Police arrived outside
the McCormick Harvester Works in Chicago, where 1,400 IWPA workers were
on strike. They opened-fire on the crowd while anarchist August Spies
was making a speech, killing four of the workers.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAspies.htm)
1886 May 4, At
Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an 8-hour
workday turned into a riot when a bomb exploded. Seven policemen were
killed and some 60 others injured. Only one policeman was killed in the
strike. 3 labor leaders were executed Nov 10, 1887, for the bombing.
The Haymarket affair is generally considered to have been an important
influence on the origin of international May Day observances for
workers.
(AP, 5/4/97)(WSJ, 2/6/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot)
1886 May 5, A bomb exploded on the
fourth day of a workers' strike in Chicago, Ill.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1886 Charles T. Yerkes acquired a
primitive horse-car company on Chicago’s North Side. He acquired
another the following year on the West Side and proceeded to develop
the city’s streetcar system. His accomplishments included the
Northwestern Elevated, the Consolidated Traction network of suburban
lines and the Union Loop.
(WSJ, 8/29/06, p.D5)
1886 Web site on labor strikes of
this year.
(http://www.execpc.com/~blake/)
1887 Nov 11, Albert Parsons,
August Spies, Adolph Fisher and George Engel were hanged for their
participation in the May 4, 1886, Chicago Haymarket riot. As the noose
was placed around his neck, Spies shouted out: "There will be a time
when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle
today."
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAspies.htm)
1887 The first softball game on
record was held indoors at the Farragus Boat Club.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.E5)
1888 Chicago’s 11-story Rookery
building at 209 S. La Salle St. was built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1888 Edward Katzinger founded a
commercial baking-pan company in Chicago. It later became known as Ecko
Housewares Co. By the 1960s it was the country’s largest manufacturer
of non-electric kitchen items.
(SFC, 4/16/08, p.G3)
1889
Apr 1, The first dishwashing machine was marketed (in Chicago).
(OTD)
1889 Nov 17, The Union Pacific
Railroad Co. began direct, daily railroad service between Chicago and
Portland, Ore., as well as Chicago and San Francisco.
(AP, 11/17/97)
1889 The Auditorium Theater,
designed by Louis Sullivan, was completed.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C12)
1889 Louis Frederick Nonnast (41),
a German immigrant (1865), had his own Chicago furniture factory by
this time. In 1914 the firm was renamed Louis F. Nonnast & Sons.
(SFC, 8/31/05, p.G3)
1890 In Chicago Henry C. Niemann
organized the H.C. Niemann & Co. to make tables. In 1909 the
company moved to the 1800 block of Rockwell Street. It closed in 1929.
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.G6)
1890 The population of Chicago
reached 1.1 million.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.12)
1891 William Wrigley, Jr., born in
Philadelphia in 1861, began his business career by selling soap
manufactured by his father. In 1891, Wrigley moved to Chicago where he
founded and became president of Wm. Wrigley, Jr. Company,
manufacturers of chewing gum, earning him the money to acquire the
Chicago Cubs and to build Wrigley‘s Stadium. Wrigley is especially
noted for his effective advertising techniques.
(AP, 4/9/00)
1892 Jun 23, The Democratic
national convention in Chicago nominated former President Cleveland on
the first ballot.
(AP, 6/23/02)
1892 Oct 1, The University of
Chicago opened.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1892 Oct 18, The first
long-distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was formally
opened. It could only handle one call at a time.
(AP, 10/18/07)
1892 Oct 20, The city of Chicago
dedicated the World's Columbian Exposition.
(AP, 10/20/97)
1892 Oct, The Univ. of Chicago
began operations under Pres. William Rainey Harper. It was founded by
John D. Rockefeller.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.19)(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.W11)
1892 The 3-story Georgian mansion,
the Reddington House, was built on the "Gold Coast" near Lake Shore
Drive. Selling price in 1998 was $2.2 million.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.B12)
1893 Jan 2, World's Columbian
Exposition opened in Chicago. [see May 1]
(MC, 1/2/02)
1893 May 1, The World’s Columbian
Exposition was officially opened in Chicago by President Cleveland. The
El in Chicago was erected to take visitors to the World’s Columbian
Exposition. It created a section of town called the Loop encircled by
the railway. The exposition grounds covered over 600 acres of south
Chicago along Lake Michigan. The exposition attracted over 21 million
visitors who saw such wonders as the Ferris Wheel and electricity
(first displayed in the Paris Exposition in 1889, but still unknown to
most Americans). It was the first American exposition to make a profit.
In 2003 Erik Larson authored "The Devil in the White City: Murder,
Magic and madness at the Fair That Changed America."
(AP, 5/1/97)(Hem. 7/96, p.25)(HNQ, 2/18/01)(SSFC,
3/30/03, p.M1)
1893 Jun 21, George Washington
Gale Ferris, engineer, completed the construction of a 254-foot high
revolving steel wheel with 38 passenger cars, each with 40 plush
chairs, for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
(ON, 11/99, p.7)(MC, 6/21/02)
1893 Jul 9, Daniel Hale Williams
(1858-1931), an African-American surgeon, performed successful heart
surgery on a teenager in Chicago.
(WSJ, 11/17/07, p.W11)(http://tinyurl.com/37gnkk)
1893 Aug 24, A fire in south
Chicago left 5,000 people homeless.
(Reuters, 8/24/01)
1893 Mary Cassatt painted a
58-foot "Modern Woman" for the Women’s Building of the World’s Fair.
(WSJ, 11/3/98, p.A20)
1893 Chicago’s new Monadnock
Building carried its 17 stories on ground-floor walls 6 feet thick.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
1893 The Field Museum opened in
Chicago.
(WSJ, 8/30/04, p.A1)
1893 The Chicago Stock Exchange,
designed by Louis Sullivan, was completed. It was demolished in 1972.
(WSJ, 10/8/03, p.D6)
1893 Swami Vivekananda was sent to
Chicago by his guru, Ramakrishna, from India to spread his teachings on
yoga.
(WSJ, 6/23/00, p.A1)
1893 At the Chicago Exposition
Milton Hershey was impressed with an exhibition featuring
chocolate-making machinery from Germany and commented to his cousin,
Frank Snavely, "Caramels are only a fad. Chocolate is a permanent
thing." With that, Hershey decided to go into the chocolate business,
purchasing the German-made machinery and installing it at his Lancaster
Caramel Company in Pennsylvania. With the help of expert chocolate
makers, Hershey was soon producing chocolate-covered caramels, called
"novelties." In 1900, Hershey sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for $1
million, but retained the chocolate-making machinery. Soon thereafter,
he launched the Hershey Chocolate Company and built a town around it,
Hershey, Pennsylvania.
(HNQ, 10/31/00)
1893 F.W. Rueckheim introduced a
confection of popcorn, peanuts and molasses at the Columbian Exposition
in Chicago. It was given the name Cracker Jack in 1896.
(AH, 10/04, p.71)
1893 Chicago's Mayor Carter
Harrison was killed, the 1st US mayor shot in a political killing.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.E2)
1894 Jan 8, Fire caused serious
damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1894 May 11, Workers at the
Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois went on strike. The American
Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, subsequently began a boycott of
Pullman that blocked freight traffic in and out of Chicago. Pullman had
cut wages due to the recession but left high rents in his company town.
Mail cars were coupled to Pullman cars and Pres. Cleveland ordered
federal troops onto the trains to insure the delivery of mail. Illinois
Gov. John Peter Altgeld opposed Cleveland’s plans. 34 union workers
were killed when federal troops intervened.
(AP, 5/11/97)(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A3)(SFC, 10/4/02,
p.A17)
1894 Jul 20, 2000 federal troops
were recalled from Chicago with the end of the Pullman strike.
(MC, 7/20/02)
c1894 Philosopher John Dewey
transferred from the Univ. of Mich. to the Univ. of Chicago.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.19)
1895 Feb 4, The 1st rolling lift
bridge opened in Chicago.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1895 Nov 28, America's first auto
race between gasoline-powered automobiles was staged on Thanksgiving
Day. The race, sponsored by the Chicago Times Herald, was to be run
along a 52-mile course of muddy, frozen streets from Jackson Park to
Waukegan, Illinois. The race attracted 80 entries but only six
starters. James Franklin Duryea drove his brother’s car (Charles Edgar
Duryea) in the first automobile race from Chicago to Waukegan over 52
miles of snowy roads at an average 7.5 mph. He collected $2,000 from
the Chicago Times-Herald. It took him 7 hours and 53 minutes to
complete the round trip. The average speed was 7 mph. 80 cars entered
the race, 6 started and 2 finished. J. Frank Duryea, driving the Duryea
at an average speed of 5 mph, crossed the finish line 10 hours and 23
minutes after the start. One other participant was forced to drop out
of the race, suffering from hypothermia.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E3)(AP, 11/28/97)(DTnet,
11/28/97)(HNPD, 11/28/98)
1895 Chicago’s Marquette Building
at 140 Dearborn St. was built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1895 Chicago’s 14-story Reliance
Building at 32 N. State St. was built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1895 Philosopher John Dewey
founded the Dept. of Education at the Univ. of Chicago. Closure of the
dept. was announced in 1997.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.19)
1895 Sears, Roebuck and Co. issued
its 1st catalog. Within 2 years it was advertising 6,000 items.
(WSJ, 12/17/03, p.B1)
c1895 In Chicago the Fairbank’s
Company introduced “Fairbank’s Fairy Soap.” The brand disappeared in
the 1930’s when the company was bought out. Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank
had begun producing soap following his involvement in the lard-rending
business in the 1880s.
(SFC, 5/4/05, p.G5)
1896 May 7, Dr. Henry Howard
Holmes (b.1860), serial killer, was hanged to death in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Born as Herman Webster Mudgett in Gilmantown, New
Hampshire, to a devout Methodist family, Holmes spent much of his
childhood torturing animals. He later graduated from the University of
Michigan with a medical degree. Holmes financed his education with a
series of insurance scams whereby he requested coverage for nonexistent
people and then presented corpses as the insured. In 1886, Holmes moved
to Chicago to work as a pharmacist. A few months later, he killed the
elderly owner of the store but told everyone that the man had left him
in charge. With a new series of cons, Holmes raised enough money to
build a giant, elaborate home across from the store. The home, which
Holmes called "The Castle," had secret passageways, fake walls, and
trapdoors. Young women in the area, along with tourists who had come to
see the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and had rented out rooms in
Holmes' castle, suddenly began disappearing. Medical schools purchased
many human skeletons from Dr. Holmes during this period but never asked
how he obtained the anatomy specimens. Holmes was finally caught after
attempting to use another corpse, his assistant Benjamin Pitezel, in an
insurance scam. He confessed, saying, "I was born with the devil in me.
I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet
can help the inspiration to sing." Reportedly, authorities discovered
the remains of over 200 victims on his property.
(www.thecrimeweb.com/hhholmes.htm)
1896 Jul 7, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Chicago. The National Democratic Party
formed to run a slate of candidates in 1896 because the Democratic
Party had been taken over by the free-silver faction, which called for
the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the 16 to 1 ratio. They
also condemned trusts, monopolies, high protective tariffs and the use
of injunctions against labor. The "sound money" or gold Democrats
withdrew from the party convention, organized the National Democratic
Party and nominated John M. Palmer of Illinois its presidential
candidate. The gold plank in the Republican Party caused a similar
split, with free-silver Republicans bolting the party and forming the
National Silver Republicans, who endorsed the Democratic Party
candidate for president, William Jennings Bryan. Republican William
McKinley won the presidential election.
(AP, 7/7/97)(HNQ, 8/23/99)
1896 Jun 8, William Jennings Bryan
propelled himself to presidential candidacy when he stood before the
Democratic Convention and made his famous "Cross of Gold" speech. The
paramount issue in the 1896 presidential election was one of
economics—the U.S. government promised to pay the holder of one dollar
bill one dollar in gold. Democrats, farmers and westerners demanded
that the government redeem paper money in silver as well, while
Republicans and easterners protested that this policy would destroy the
economy. It was on this dull, technical issue that 36-year-old William
Jennings Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, launched his
national political career. When he made his "Cross of Gold" speech, the
Democrats had no strong presidential candidate. His dramatic words—"You
shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you
shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"—electrified his
audience and resulted in his nomination for president in 1896. [see Jul
9]
(HNQ, 6/8/98)(MC, 7/8/02)
1896 Nov 26, Coach Amos Alonzo
Stagg of Univ. of Chicago created the football huddle.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, Z1 p.5)(MC, 11/26/01)
1896 F.W. Rueckheim & Brother
of Chicago received a trademark for "Cracker Jack." The popcorn and
peanuts covered with molasses syrup sold for a nickel a box in 1899.
(HFA, ‘96, p.67)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.)(SFC, 7/29/98, Z1
p.23)(AH, 10/01, p.34)
1898 Jan 1, The consolidation of
NYC ended a rivalry with Chicago which had annexed some 20,000 people
in the surrounding towns of Hyde Park, Kenwood, Pullman and Woodlawn.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)
1898 Jun 7, Social Democracy of
America party held its 1st national convention in Chicago.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1898 In Chicago the Pickard China
Co. was founded by Wilder Pickard. He hired artists to paint imported
China blanks. About 1911 Pickard started acid-etching china pieces and
coating them with gold. the "Rose and Daisy" pattern was the most
popular.
(SFC, 2/11/98, Z1 p.6)
1898 The Chicago Mercantile
Exchange began operations.
(Econ, 9/20/03, p.68)
1899 Jan 17, Notorious gangster Al
Capone was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. The U.S. mobster known as "Scarface
Al" later ran most of Chicago and the surrounding area.
(AP, 1/17/99)(HN, 1/17/99)
1899 Feb 20, Illinois Tel &
Tel was granted a franchise for a Chicago freight tunnel system.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1899 May 20, John M. Harlan, the
91st Supreme Court justice (1955-71), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1899 Jul 3, The nation's first
juvenile court opened on the West Side after reformers like Jane Addams
pushed the Illinois legislature to recognized that children were
developmentally different from adults.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, Z1 p.1)
1899 Jul 21, Author Ernest
Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Ill.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1900 Jan 29, The American League,
consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in Philadelphia with
teams from Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas
City, Milwaukee and Minneapolis.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 1/29/98)
1900 Feb 1, In Chicago Ada and
Minna Everleigh opened their Everleigh Club, a high-end brothel. They
closed operations in 1911.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)
1900 May 31, Chicago’s
Northwestern Elevated began operations, and Charles T. Yerkes, its
chief visionary was present to see his project come to fruition.
(www.chicago-l.org/figures/yerkes/)
1900s In the early 1900s "The
Friendly Friends" of Chicago, a group of madams, met periodically to
plan protection for one another. They compared client lists and found
that they could influence the most powerful men in town.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, Z1 p.2)
1901 Dec 5, Walter Elias Disney
(d.1966), movie producer and animator, was born in Chicago. Walt Disney
created a cartoon empire with the character Mickey Mouse.
(AP, 12/5/97)(SFC, 11/4/98, p.E1)(HN, 12/5/98)(MC,
12/5/01)
1901 Charles R. Walgreen opened
his first pharmacy on Chicago’s South side and made his mark by
diversifying into housewares and hot food.
(WSJ, 2/17/07, p.A4)
1902 Mar 4, The American
Automobile Association was founded in Chicago.
(AP, 3/4/98) (HN, 3/4/98)
1902 May 15, Richard Daley, mayor
of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970's, was born.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1902 Train service between New
York and Chicago began. In 1995 Amtrak’s "Broadway Limited" service
made its final run.
(AP, 9/9/00)(MC, 9/9/01)
1903 Apr 19, Eliot Ness, Treasury
agent, was born. He fought for prohibition in Chicago, Ill.
(HN, 4/19/99)
1903 Aug 19, James Gould Cozzens
(d.1978), US novelist, was born in Chicago. His novels included
"Farewell to Cuba" and "Guard of Honor" for which he won a 1949
Pulitzer.
(MC, 8/19/02)(Internet)
1903 Dec 30, The Iroquois Theater
Fire of Chicago killed 602 people. Matinee patrons for "Mr Bluebeard"
panicked despite efforts by comedian Eddie Foy (47) to calm the crowd.
In 2003 Anthony P. Hatch authored "Tinder Box," an account of the fire.
(HFA, '96, p.70)(AP, 12/30/97)(PCh, 1992,
p.652)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.W9)
1904 Jan 29, The 1st athletic
letters were given to the Univ. of Chicago football team.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1904 Jun 17, Ralph Bellamy, actor
(Air Mail, Dive Bomber, Trading Places, Sunrise at Campobello, Winds of
War, War and Remembrance), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1904 Orchestra Hall was built.
(WSJ, 10/9/97, p.A16)
1904 The Ravinia Festival was
founded as a high-class amusement park designed to increase ridership
for a railroad company. It became a center for summertime opera but
folded during the depression in 1931. It re-opened in 1936 as the
summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A12)
1905 Feb 23, The Rotary Club was
founded in Chicago by lawyer Paul Percy Harris and 3 friends.
(AP, 2/23/98)(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A27)
1905 Jun 11, Pennsylvania Railroad
debuted the fastest train in world (NY-Chicago in 18 hrs).
(SC, 6/11/02)
1905 Jul 7, The International
Workers of the World founded their labor organization in Chicago. The
IWW was formed by William Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners,
Daniel De Leon of the Socialist Labor Party and Eugene V. Debs of
the Socialist Party. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) were also known as Wobblies. The Wobblies were formed partly in
response to the American Federation of Labor’s opposition to the
unionization of unskilled labor. As an organization that advocated
sabotage, they were suppressed and prosecuted by the federal government
from 1917-18 and were driven underground by the "Red Scare" that
started in the United States in 1919. Ideological disputes with
the newly formed U.S. Communist Party dissipated their remaining
energies so that they ceased to be a force of any significance past the
mid-1920s. In 1969 Melvyn Dublfsky authored its definitive history "We
Shall Overcome."
(HNQ, 10/16/00)(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A24)(HN, 7/7/01)
1905 Dec 29, Charles Tyson Yerkes
(b.1837), financier, died in New York City. His estate was valued at $4
million. Yerkes developed Chicago’s streetcar system. His life was
immortalized in Theodore Dreiser's Cowperwood trilogy: “The Financier’
(1912), “The Titan’ (1914), and “The Stoic” (1947). In 2006 John Franch
authored the biography “Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes.
(WSJ, 8/29/06,
p.D5)(www.chicago-l.org/figures/yerkes/)
1905 James Burnham (d.1987),
political activist and author, was born in Chicago.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.D6)
1905 Robert Sengstacke Abbott
founded the Chicago Defender newspaper. The paper helped ignite the
move of tens of thousands of southern black sharecroppers north to
Chicago and other cities. His nephew, John Sengstacke, took over the
paper in 1940 and expanded it from a weekly to a daily. In 1991
Nicholas Lemann authored "The Promised Land," an account of the black
migrations from the deep South to Chicago.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/29/99, p.A20)
1906 Jan 16, Marshall Field (71),
Chicago department store founder, died in NYC.
(AP, 1/16/06)
1906 Aug 15, The 1st freight
delivery tunnel system began underneath Chicago.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1906 Upton Sinclair published "The
Jungle," a novel that exposed the intolerable working conditions in the
Chicago slaughterhouses.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1906 The Chicago Lighthouse was
founded by a group of women volunteers who were both blind and sighted
and offered housing, clothing and food assistance to people who were
blind.
(www.thechicagolighthouse.org/default.asp?page=aboutus)
1907 Marshall Field expanded his
landmark store on Chicago’s State Street to cover the whole block on
State St. bounded by Wabash, Washington and Randolph.
(http://chicago.urban-history.org/sites/d_stores/fields.htm)(WSJ,
9/21/05, p.A6)
1908 Jun 18, William Howard Taft
was nominated for president by the Republican national convention in
Chicago.
(AP, 6/18/08)
1908 Aug 8, Arthur J. Goldberg
(d.1990), labor lawyer, UN ambassador, Supreme Court justice (1962-65),
was born in, Chicago, Illinois. He was instrumental in the merger of
the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations.
(HN, 8/8/98)(AP, 8/8/08)
1908 Oct 10, The Chicago Cubs won
Game 1 of the World Series with a 10-6 victory over the Detroit Tigers
at Bennett Park.
(AP, 10/10/08)
1908 Oct 11, The Chicago Cubs took
a 2-0 lead in the World Series, defeating the visiting Detroit Tigers
6-1 at the West Side Grounds.
(AP, 10/11/08)
1908 Oct 12, The Detroit Tigers
beat the Chicago Cubs 8-3 in Game 3 of the World Series, played in
Chicago.
(AP, 10/12/08)
1908 Oct 13, The Chicago Cubs won
Game 4 of the World Series, defeating the Detroit Tigers 3-0 to take a
3-1 Series lead.
(AP, 10/13/08)
1908 Oct 14, The Chicago Cubs won
the World Series as they defeated the Detroit Tigers in Game 5, 2-0, at
Bennett Park.
(AP, 10/14/08)
1908 Chicago’s Robie House, 5757
S. Woodlawn Ave., was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was completed
in 1910.
(WSJ, 10/22/04,
p.W2)(www.wrightplus.org/robiehouse/robiehouse.html)
1908 A Chicago Auto Show was held.
Walter P. Chrysler saw his first "Locomobile" at the show.
(WSJ, 6/1/00, p.A20)
1909 Jul 25, Draugas, "The
Friend," a Lithuanian newspaper, began publishing in Chicago.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1909 Nov 11, Robert Ryan, actor
(Billy Budd, Dirty Dozen, Longest Day), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1910 Feb 28, Vincente Minnelli,
director (American in Paris, Gigi), was born in Chicago, IL.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1910 Sep, In Chicago a spontaneous
strike by a handful of women workers led to a citywide strike of 45,000
garment workers. That strike was a bitter one and pitted the strikers
against not only their employers and the local authorities, but also
their own union.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamated_Clothing_Workers_of_America)
1911 Aug, Calbraith Perry Rodgers
stayed aloft longer than any other contestant at the Chicago
International Aviation Meet. Rodgers had recently purchased a new
Wright airplane, the 1st ever sold to a private citizen.
(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1911 Oct 25, In Chicago Ada and
Minna Everleigh closed their Everleigh Club, a high-end brothel, which
they had begun in 1910. In 2007 Karen Abbott authored “Sin in the
Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's
Soul.”
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)
1911 Nov 11, A man died of heat
prostration.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1911 Nov 12, Two people froze to
death. The temperature had dropped 61 degrees overnight.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1911-1960s The Diamond T company built high quality
trucks in Chicago and Indiana during this period. In 1934 the company
shipped a fire truck was shipped to Alcatraz Prison.
(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A25)
1912 Jun 27, Audrey Christie,
actress (Dorothy-Fair Exchange), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1912 Harriet Monroe, former
Chicago Tribune art critic, founded the monthly Poetry Magazine. In
2002 Ruth Lilly (87), great-grandchild of Eli Lilly, gave the magazine
a $100 million endowment.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A3)
1913 Mar 22, Karl Malden, actor
(Mike-Streets of SF, American Express), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1913 Dec 7, Aaron Montgomery Ward,
founder of the mail order industry, died.
1913 Dec 27, Charles Moyer,
president of the Miners Union, was shot in the back and dragged through
the streets of Chicago.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1913 Dec 29, The 1st movie serial,
"Adventures of Kathlyn," premiered in Chicago.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1913 Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg of
the Univ. of Chicago instituted numbered jerseys for football players.
The Univ. of Pittsburgh introduced the 1st football jerseys with
numbers on the back in 1908.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.B6)(SFEC, 12/5/99, Z1 p.5)
1913 Anderson, Delany & Co.,
an accounting firm, was formed in Chicago. The firm was renamed Arthur
Anderson in 1918. Arthur Anderson (28), accounting professor, was a
co-founder.
(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/1/02, p.B1)(WSJ,
6/7/02, p.A6)
1915 Apr 6, Big Bill Thompson
(1869-1944) won the general election to become mayor of Chicago.
Thompson served 3 terms: 1915-1919, 1919-1923, and 1927-1931.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/thompson.html)
1915 Jun 24, More than 800 people
died when the excursion steamer "Eastland" capsized at Chicago’s Clark
Street dock.
(AP, 6/24/00)
1915 Aug 19, Ring Lardner Jr.,
author and screenwriter (A Star Is Born), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1916 Apr 20, Wrigley Field in
Chicago opened.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1917 The Chicago White Sox won the
Baseball World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1918 Nov 24, Frank O. King
premiered his comic strip "Gasoline Alley" in the Chicago Tribune. He
aged his characters over time.
(SFC, 7/8/98, Z1 p.3)(WSJ, 6/20/01,
p.A1)(www.toonopedia.com/gasalley.htm)
1918 Dec 31, Kid Gleason replaced
Pants Rowland as White Sox manager.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1918 Frank King premiered his
comic strip "Gasoline Alley" in the Chicago Tribune.
(SFC, 7/8/98, Z1 p.3)
1918 Walter Jacobs opened a rental
business in Chicago that grew to become Hertz. In 1923 he sold his
business to John Hertz. GM owned Hertz from 1826 to 1953. Ford acquired
Hertz in 1985 and in 2005 announced plans to sell it to a consortium of
3 private equity firms in a deal valued at $15 billion.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.60)
1919 Jul 21, A dirigible crashed
through a bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Jul 27, In a Chicago race
riot 15 whites and 23 blacks were killed with 500 injured.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1919 Jul 30, Federal troops were
called out to put down Chicago race riots.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1919 Aug 18, Anti-Cigarette League
of America formed in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1919 Aug 31, John Reed formed the
Communist Labor Party in Chicago, with the motto, "Workers of the world
unite!"
(HN, 8/31/98)(YN, 8/31/99)(MC, 8/31/01)
1919 Oct 1, In baseball’s World
Series the Chicago White Sox faced the Cincinnati Reds in a best of 9
games. The White Sox intentionally threw the series to satisfy gamblers
in what became known as the Black Sox Scandal. 8 players were banned
from baseball for life. In 1963 Eliot Asinof described the events in
his book “Eight men Out.” The 1988 baseball film "Eight Men Out" was
directed by John Sayles.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR p.8)(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.33)(AH,
10/04, p.14)
1919 Oct 9, The Cincinnati Reds
won the World Series, defeating the Chicago White Sox 10-5 at Comiskey
Park. The victory turned hollow amid charges eight of the White Sox had
thrown the Series in what became known as the "Black Sox" scandal.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1919 Draugas, a Lithuanian
newspaper, began daily publication. It was published by the
congregation of Lithuanian Marion fathers in Chicago.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1919 James Henry Breasted,
archeologist, founded the Oriental Institute as part of the Univ. of
Chicago. The collection was opened to the public in 1931.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A25)
1919 Henry Ford sued the Chicago
Tribune for libel after the newspaper called him an "ignorant"
anarchist. Ford won the suit and was awarded 6 cents. He soon began
amassing material of historical value.
(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.A7)
1920 Feb 14, The League of Women
Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maude Wood Park.
(AP, 2/14/98)
1920 Jun 10, The Republican
convention in Chicago endorsed woman suffrage.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1920 Jun 11, The US Republican
Senate bosses gathered in rooms 408 & 410 of the Blackstone Hotel
in Chicago and selected Sen. Warren Harding to break a deadlock.
Harding, disregarding his mistress of four years, Nan Britton, declared
himself to be of good character. The Republicans nominated Warren G.
Harding at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Britton later wrote a book,
"The President’s Daughter," about their relations and claimed that she
bore his daughter. Harding had another mistress named Carrie Phillips.
In 1999 Martin Blinder published his novel "Fluke" based on Harding's
political career and presidency.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(Hem, 8/96, p.84)(SFC, 2/5/98,
p.A8)(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.8)
1920 Jun 12, Republicans in
Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge
for vice president.
(HN, 6/12/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
1920 Jun 20, Race riots in
Chicago, Illinois left two dead and many wounded.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1920 Sep 22, Chicago grand jury
convened to investigate charges that 8 White Sox players conspired to
fix the 1919 World Series.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1920 Sep 27, Eight Chicago White
Sox players were charged with fixing the 1919 World Series. [see Sep 28]
(HN, 9/27/98)
1920 Sep 28, 8 White Sox players
were indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series (Black Sox scandal).
[see Sep 27]
(MC, 9/28/01)
1920 Oct 23, Chicago grand jury
indicted Abe Attell, Hal Chase, and Bill Burns as go-betweens in Black
Sox World Series scandal.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1920s Retail tycoon Marshall Field
built the Merchandise Mart as a city within a city. The 25 floors of
retail space was connected by underground railroad to other important
places of commerce.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1920 Radio station WLS was named
after the slogan of Sears, "World's Largest Store."
(WSJ, 7/23/99, p.W7)
1921 Jul
18, The prosecution gave its opening remarks in the trial of the
Chicago Black Sox, accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/blacksox/chronology.html)
1921 Aug 2, A jury in Chicago
acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team
and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious
"Black Sox" scandal.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1921 Aug 3, Baseball commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis refused to reinstate the former Chicago White
Sox players implicated in the "Black Sox" scandal, despite their
acquittals in a jury trial.
(AP, 8/3/01)
1921 Grigsby-Grunow began business
operations in Chicago. In 1928 they began manufacturing radio receivers
under the Majestic brand name. The company went bankrupt in 1933.
(SFC, 3/9/05, p.G4)
1922 Mar 31, Richard Kiley, actor
(Man of La Mancha, Endless Love), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1922 Apr 15, Harold Washington,
first black mayor of Chicago (1983-1987), was born.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1922 Jul 26, Jason Robards Jr,
actor (A Thousand Clowns, Any Wednesday), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1922 Aug 26, The Philadelphia
Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs 26-23.
(SFEC, 7/25/99, Z1 p.2)
1922 Oct 28, The 1st
coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game. WEAF in New York
broadcast the first collegiate football game to be heard across the US.
Princeton played against the University of Chicago at Stagg Field in
Chicago, Illinois. Telephone lines transmitted the game to New York
City, where the radio transmission started. Queensboro Realty Co. paid
$100 for 10 minutes of air time. (Princeton 21, Chicago 18.)
(http://senior.billings.k12.mt.us/otrannex/history/radio.htm)
1922 W. Clement Stone (1902-2002)
began his Combined Registry & Co., an insurance operation, in
Chicago, Illinois with $100. In 1987 it was renamed Aon Corp. By the
time of his death Combined Int’l. had grown to a $2 billion concern.
(SSFC, 7/16/06,
p.D1)(www.combined.com/2130_history.html)
1923 Jan 8, Giorgio Tozzi, basso
(Met Opera, Boris, Don Giovanni), was born in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1923 Frank Willard (1958) created
the Moon Mullins comic strip for the Chicago Tribune. The strip
continued with other artists following Willard’s death until 1991.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1924 Apr 11, WLS-AM in Chicago IL
began radio transmissions.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1924 Apr 14, Louis Henri Sullivan
(67), Chicago architect (Wainwright building St Louis), died. He wrote
an autobiography entitled "The Autobiography of an Idea." "Imagination
is the greatest of man’s single working powers - and the trickiest; as
the intellect is the frailest, the most subject to derangement, the
most given to cowardice and betrayal, unless it be held steady and sane
by the power of instinct."
(Hem., 7/95, p.82)(MC, 4/14/02)
1924 Apr 19, The "National Barn
Dance" premiered on WLS in Chicago.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1924 Apr 30, Sheldon Harnick,
lyricist (Fiorello, Fiddler on the Roof), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1924 May 21, Bobby Franks (14) was
murdered in a "thrill killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. (19) and
Richard Loeb (18), two rich college kids of the University of Chicago.
The meticulously planned crime might never have been solved had
Leopold's unique eyeglasses not been found near Franks' body. They were
defended by Clarence Darrow, who pleaded his clients guilty in order to
keep the case from a jury. Richard Loeb was a cousin of Bobby Franks.
The sensational two-month trial generated an outcry in favor of
execution, but Judge John Caverly sentenced the two to life
imprisonment. Loeb was killed in a prison fight in 1936. Leopold, with
the support of Prosecutor Crowe, was released from prison in 1958 and
died of a heart attack in 1971. In 1956 Meyer Levin authored
“Compulsion,” an account of the case. A play dramatizing the case was
written in 1995 by John Logan. In 2008 Simon Baatz authored “For the
Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago.”
(AP, 5/21/97)(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-12)(AP,
5/21/97)(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W8)
1924 Jun 7, Dolores Gray, singer,
actress (Designing Woman, Kismet), was born in Chicago.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1924 Sep 10, Leopold and Loeb were
found guilty of deliberate, casual murder in Chicago.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1925 Aug 28, Donald O’Connor
(d.2003), dancer, actor (Singing in the Rain, Anything Goes), was born
in Chicago, Ill.
(HN, 8/28/00)(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.A33)
1925 Chicago's Soldier Field,
designed by Holabird & Root, was dedicated. It was built largely
for track and field and had over 100,000 seats. In 2003 a new football
stadium was completed within the colonnades of the original memorial.
(WSJ, 10/8/03, p.D6)
1925 The 1st Sears retail store
opened on Chicago’s west side.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)
1926 Apr 9, Hugh Hefner, publisher
of Playboy Magazine, was born in Chicago.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A21)(HN, 4/9/98)(MC, 4/9/02)
1926 The Aunt Jemima Mills Co. was
purchased by the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jemima)
1926 The Hawthorne Arms Hotel,
headquarters for Al Capone, was machine-gunned by rival mobsters.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A13)
1927 Jul 14, John William
Chancellor, news anchor (NBC, VOA), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1927 Oct 1, Tom Bosley, actor
(Howard-Happy Days, Murder She Wrote), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1927 In Chicago Al Capone's
support allowed Big Bill Thompson to return to the mayor's office.
Pledging to clean up Chicago and remove the crooks, Thompson instead
turned his attention to the reformers, whom he considered the real
criminals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hale_Thompson)
1927 Sears launched its Craftsman
and Kenmore brands.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)
1927-1934 The Chicago Tribune published an edition in
Paris. In 1987 Waverley Root authored “The Paris Edition.”
(WSJ, 9/29/07, p.W8)
1928 Mar 19, "Amos & Andy"
debuted on radio with the NBC Blue Network, WMAQ Chicago.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 The int'l. Early Birds
organization for early aviators was founded. Members included solo
fliers prior to Dec 17, 1916. The last member, George D. Grundy Jr.,
died in 1998 at age 99.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)
1929 Feb 14, In Chicago the "St.
Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in a garage of the Moran gang as
seven rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down. Police found seven
men shot to death in a North Chicago garage. With the exception of one,
the men were working under George "Bugs" Moran, a well-known bootlegger
and gangster, and staunch rival of Al "Scarface" Capone. Members of
Capone’s gang lured the victims into the garage under the guise of
selling cheap alcohol. Then two of Capone’s men, dressed up as police
officers, staged a raid. Believing them to be real, Moran’s outfit
turned over its weapons, turned to face the wall and waited for the
arrest. It was at that point that the hit on Moran’s men took place.
Neighbors heard the gunfire, but assumed the police were involved when
Capone’s costumed officers escorted the gunmen outside and together,
they all fled the scene.
(TMC, 1994, p.1929)(AP, 2/14/98)(HNQ, 2/14/02)
1929 Sep 11, David S. Broder,
journalist (Pulitzer 1973), was born in Chicago Hgts., Ill.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1930 Jan 9, Earth rumbling
awakened Chicagoans- no earthquake, seismologists said. The stockyards
sprang a leak and a foul stench covered the city for three hours.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1930
Apr 1, Leo Hartnett of the Chicago Cubs broke the altitude record
for a catch by catching a baseball dropped from the Goodyear blimp 800
feet over Los Angeles, CA.
(OTD)
1930 May 10, The 1st US
planetarium opened in Chicago.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1930 Sep 17, The Daily Illustrated
Times of Chicago said that warrants had been issued for the arrest of
26 men named as public enemies. They included Alphonse “Scarface”
Capone, Tony “Mops” Volpe, “Machine Gun Jack” McGurn, George “Bugs”
Moran, Edward “Spike” O’Donnell, William “Klondike” O’Donnell, George
“Red” Barker, and William “Three-fingers” White.
(SFC, 9/16/05, p.F6)
1930 Nov 13, In California the
Fresno Bee reported that Al Capone, Chicago gangland leader, had banned
the sale of grape juice concentrates in Chicago. The order was said to
be a warning to California grape farmers that they need his approval to
sell their products in certain markets.
(SFC, 11/11/05, p.F7)
1930s William L Shirer succeeded
George Seldes as the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.
Shirer later wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1931 Apr 15, Florian Zabach,
violinist (Hot Canary, Club), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1931 Oct 24, Al (Alphonse) Capone,
prohibition era Chicago gangster, was sentenced to 11 years in prison
for tax evasion.
(HN, 10/24/98)(MC, 10/24/01)
1931 Sears started Allstate
Insurance Co. Employees received group life insurance.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)
1931 Anton Cermak became mayor of
Chicago. He was assassinated March 8, 1933.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey
p.12)(www.cermak.com/mayor/index3.html)
1932 Jun 16, President Hoover and
Vice President Charles Curtis were renominated at the Republican
national convention in Chicago.
(AP, 6/16/02)
1932 Jul 1, New York Gov. Franklin
D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the Democratic convention
in Chicago.
(AP, 7/1/07)
1932 Jul 2, New York Gov. Franklin
D. Roosevelt won the nomination for president on the 4th ballot at the
Democratic convention in Chicago.
(ON, 12/07, p.3)
1932 Sep 19, Mike Royko,
journalist (Chic Daily News) and author (Boss), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1933 Feb 15, President-elect
Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami. Giuseppa Zangara,
an unemployed New Jersey bricklayer from Italy, fired five pistol shots
at the back of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt's head from only
twenty-five feet away. While all five rounds missed their target, each
bullet found a separate victim. One of these was Mayor Anton Cermak of
Chicago. [see Mar 8, 20]
(AP, 2/15/98)(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)
1933 Mar 6, Anton J. Cermak
(b.1873), Czech-born 35th mayor of Chicago, died in Miami following the
Feb 15th assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara, who was trying to
shoot FDR. Zangara was executed in the electric chair on March 21,
1933. Cermak became the 2nd US mayor to die in a political killing.
(SFC, 11/28/03,
p.E2)(www.cermak.com/mayor/index3.html)
1933 Jul 6, The first All-Star
baseball game was played, at Chicago's Comiskey Park; the American
League defeated the National League, 4-2.
(AP, 7/6/08)
1933 Dec 17, In the first world
championship football game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York
Giants, 23-21, at Wrigley Field.
(AP, 12/17/08)
1933 Chicago hosted the "Century
of Progress Exhibition." The Sally Rand Fan Dancer clock made by Lux
was sold at the Chicago World’s Fair. Sally Rand performed her
titillating fan dance 16 times a day at the fair and was one of the
most publicized attractions.
(HT, 3/97, p.14)(SFC, 4/15/98, Z1 p.6)
1934 May 26, Century of Progress
Exposition reopened in Chicago.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1934 Jul
4, Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight, knocking out Jack
Kracken in the first round in Chicago. He won 12 fights that year, all
in Chicago, 10 by knockout.
(HN,
7/4/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis#Early_life_and_career)
1934 Jul 22, John Dillinger (33)
was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.
FBI agent Murray Faulkner, brother of William Faulkner, helped in the
killing. In 1924 Dillinger was sent to the Indiana State Reformatory
for holding up a grocer, and was later transferred to the Michigan
City, Indiana, State Prison, where he hatched a plan for a mass
breakout with a group of other infamous convicts. When Dillinger was
paroled in 1933, he robbed several banks to provide money for his
friends’ escape. He was caught in Ohio, but by then his friends had
escaped and they helped him break out. Dillinger’s supposed death
remains mysterious. Anna Sage, the "Lady in Red," had agreed to deliver
Dillinger to the FBI if they would stop deportation proceedings against
her. The setup went as planned, and the FBI shot the man with Anna
Sage. Dillinger was famous for the size of his penis, which was
"reportedly" severed and shown at exclusive viewings.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C22)(HNPD,
7/22/98)(HN, 7/22/99)
1934 Chicago’s Art Deco tower at
135 La Salle St. was built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1935 Dec 1, Lou Rawls, vocalist
(Dean Martin's Golddiggers, Natural Man), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1935 Katharine Kuh (1904-1994)
opened Chicago’s 1st avant garde art gallery. She closed it in 1943 and
joined the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually rising to become its
1st female curator. In 2006 Avis Burman edited Kuh’s memoir titled: “My
Love Affair with Modern Art: Behind the Scenes with a Legendary Curator.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.81)
1935 Jay Berwanger of the Univ. of
Chicago won the first Downtown Athletic Club trophy. The trophy was
renamed the Heisman trophy in 1937 following the death of former coach
and club director John Heisman.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.C18)
1936 Dec 11, An eerie glow over
Chicago took place that some believe was a rare display of the Aurora
Borealis.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1937 May 30, The Memorial Day
Massacre took place. Ten union demonstrators were killed and 84 wounded
when police opened fire in front of the South Chicago Republic Steel
plant. Earlier in 1937 the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee had
secured recognition by U.S. Steel as the workers' bargaining agency and
had won a number of concessions. "Little Steel," under the leadership
of Republic's Tom Girdler firmly opposed the union demands, leading to
the deadly demonstration. A newsreel film of the Republic Steel strike
riots was made.
(AP, 5/30/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNQ, 5/25/98)
1937 Jun 22, Joe Louis began his
reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock
in the eighth round of their fight in Chicago.
(AP, 6/22/08)
1937 Oct 31, Tom Paxton, folk
singer and songwriter (Forest Lawn), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
(1895-1946), renowned photographer, was recruited to be the founding
head of the New Bauhaus in Chicago. The design school reconstituted
itself as the School of Design and then the Institute of Design.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.D10)
1938 Mar 13, Clarence S. Darrow
(80), famed attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial, died in Chicago.
(AP, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)
1938 Oct 9, Copland's ballet
"Billy the Kid," premiered in Chicago. [see Oct 16]
(MC, 10/9/01)
1938 Oct 16, Billy the Kid, a
ballet by Aaron Copland, opened in Chicago. [see Oct 9]
(HN, 10/16/98)
1938 Nov 6, The Red Ryder and
Little Beaver cartoon strip by Fred Harman (b.1902) began appearing in
the Chicago Sun. It went out of syndication in 1964.
(WSJ, 12/23/03, p.D8)
1938 Chicago held its first
amateur air show. Lola Peppers (d.2000 at 91), one of the first black
women to receive a pilot’s license, executed figure eights, spirals and
the "dangerous stall."
(SFC, 6/21/00, p.A21)
1939 Jan 15, In the 1st NFL pro
bowl the NY Giants beat the All Stars 13-10 in Wrigley Field.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1939 Aug 29, William
Friedkin, director (Exorcist, Cruising, French Connection), was born in
Chicago.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1939 The Blommer Chocolate Co. was
founded.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.6)
1939 The Univ. of Chicago decided
to drop college football.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.C18)
1940 Jun 19, "Brenda Starr," first
cartoon strip by a woman, appeared in Chicago.
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1940 Jul 18, The Democratic
national convention in Chicago nominated President Roosevelt for an
unprecedented third term in office.
(AP, 7/18/00)
1940 John Sengstacke (d.1997 at
84) took over the Defender newspaper after the death of his uncle,
Robert Abbott. It was the largest black-owned newspaper in the country
with a circulation of some 200,000 and was a major voice in luring
Southern blacks to factory jobs in Northern cities.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A26)
1941 Apr 3, Walton's overture
"Scapino," premiered in Chicago.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1941 Apr 26, First organ played at
a baseball stadium, Chicago, Illinois.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1941 Walter H. Zinn (d.2000 at
93), nuclear physicist, oversaw the construction of the world's first
nuclear reactor in Chicago. Zinn directed the Argonne center to develop
nuclear power for peaceful use from 1946-1956.
(SFC, 2/26/00, p.A19)
1942 Mar 18, Black players, Jackie
Robinson and Nate Moreland, requested a tryout with the Chicago White
Sox. They were allowed to work out.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1942 Jul 13, Harrison Ford, actor
(Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Frantic), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1942 Oct 2, Enrico Fermi and
others demonstrated the 1st self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
under Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. [see Dec 2]
(MC, 10/2/01)
1942 Nov 18, Jeffrey Siegel,
pianist (Chicago Symph), was born in Chicago Ill.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1942 Dec 2, A self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the
University of Chicago. On the squash court underneath a football
stadium of the University of Chicago, the first nuclear chain reaction
was set off. At 3:45 p.m., control rods were removed from the "nuclear
pile" of uranium and graphite, revealing that neutrons from fissioning
uranium split other atoms, which in turn split others in a chain
reaction. The reaction was part of the Manhattan Project, the United
States' top-secret plan to develop an atomic bomb. The group of
scientists was led by Enrico Fermi and they proved that building an
atomic bomb would be feasible. Dr. Alexander Langsdorf was one of the
designers of the first 2 nuclear reactors that followed the first
sustained nuclear chain reaction at the Univ. of Chicago. The first and
last atomic bombs ever used in war were dropped on Japan in 1945.
(TMC, 1994, p.1942)(SFC, 5/26/96, p.C-10)(AP,
12/2/97)(HNPD, 12/2/98)
1942 Dec 9, Dick Butkus, NFL hall
of fame linebacker (Bears) and sportscaster, was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1943 Nov 26, Edward H "Butch"
O'Hare, US pilot, Lt-Comdr (Chicago Airport named for him), died in
battle.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1943 Dec 11, Donna Mills, actress
(Knots Landing, Incident), was born in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1944 Jun 26, The Republican
national convention opened in Chicago with a keynote speech by
California Governor Earl Warren.
(AP, 6/26/04)
1944 Jun 28, The Republican
national convention in Chicago nominated New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey
for president and Ohio Gov. John W. Bricker for vice president.
(AP, 6/28/04)
1944 Jul 19, The Democratic
National Convention convened in Chicago with the renomination of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a foregone certainty.
(AP, 7/19/08)
1945 Joseph P. Kennedy bought
Chicago’s Merchandise Mart for $13 million, less than half of what it
cost to build.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1946 Jan 26, Gene Siskel (d.1999)
was born in Chicago. He later achieved recognition as movie
critic with his counterpart Roger Ebert. Siskel and Ebert were first
paired together in 1975 for a local PBS show called "Opening Soon at a
Theater Near You."
(SFEC, 2/21/99, p.D8)
1946 Apr 20, 1st baseball game
telecast was in Chicago with the Cards vs. Cubs.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1946 Nov 12, 1st "autobank"
(banking by car) opened (Chicago).
(MC, 11/12/01)
1946 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (b.1895),
renowned photographer and the founding head of the Institute of Design
in Chicago, died.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.D10)
1946-1948 Wayne Miller (27) on a Guggenheim
fellowship documented the South Side of Chicago in photographs.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.6)
1947 Apr 16, Carol Mosely Braun,
later US Senator for Illinois (1992-1998), was born in Chicago.
(SFC, 1/14/04, p.A2)
1947 May 7, Nick DeJohn, former
capodecina in the Chicago Family, was strangled and his body stuffed
into the trunk of a car parked on a San Francisco street. DeJohn had
reportedly fled Chicago after murdering several other gang members and
was living in Santa Rosa, California, under an alias at the time of his
death.
(SFC, 2/8/06, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/8fjm7)
1947 Jun 19, The Tucker automobile
premiered in Chicago.
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1947 Oct 13, The popular
children's television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premiered as a local
Chicago show. In its first year, the show's name varied between "Kukla,
Fran and Ollie" and ":Junior Jamboree," but it was essentially the same
show.
(http://www.kukla.tv/)
1947 Nov 30, David Mamet,
playwright and director (Speed the Plow, House of Games), was born in
Chicago.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1947 Robert Hutchins (1899-1977),
president of the Univ. of Chicago, and Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001),
American philosopher, launched the Great Books Foundation.
(WSJ, 11/10/08,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_Foundation)
1948 Apr 5, WGN TV channel 9 in
Chicago, IL., began broadcasting.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1948 May 9, The first television
guide, called TV Forecast, was published by Les Vihon and 3 partners in
Chicago. It became the basis for TV Guide.
(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W10)
1948 Jul 25, Steve Goodman,
singer, songwriter (Somebody Else’s Trouble), was born in Chicago.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1948 Nov 3, The Chicago Tribune
printed the headline "Dewey defeats Truman." Later votes threw the
election in the opposite direction. And later editions of other papers
ran pictures showing Truman holding up the Tribune and grinning ear to
ear.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1948 A Greek Orthodox church was
built on Chicago’s south side. In 1972 it was purchased by the Nation
of Islam and renovated under the name Mosque Maryam. In 2008 Minister
Louis Farrakhan opened the mosque to the public in a rededication
ceremony.
(SSFC, 10/19/08, p.A2)
1948 In Chicago Clint Youle
(d.1999 at 83) became television's first weatherman.
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
1949 Jan 24, John Belushi,
comedian, actor (SNL, Blues Brothers), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1950 Jun 17, Surgeon Richard
Lawler performed the first kidney transplant operation in Chicago.
(HN, 6/17/01)
1951 Jul 12, A mob tried to keep a
black family from moving into all-white Cicero, Ill.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1952 Jul 11, The Republican
National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower
for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president.
(AP, 7/11/97)
1952 Jul 21, Robin Williams,
American comedian and actor, was born in Chicago, Ill.
(HN, 7/21/98)
1952 Nov 30, Mandy Patinkin, actor
and singer (Yentl, Alien Nation, Chicago Hope), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1953 Aug 4, Black families moved
into the Trumbull Park housing project in Chicago.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1954 Jul 2, Wendy Schaal, actress
(It's a Living, Julie-Fantasy Is), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1954 Aug 12, Sam J. Jones, actor
(Chris-Code Red, The Highway Man), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1954 Leonard and Bernice Lavin
(1925-2007) purchased a West Coast cosmetics company from Blaine Culver
for nearly half a million dollars. They moved the operation to Chicago,
renamed the company Alberto-Culver and dumped all the products except
VO5. In 1965 the company went public on the NYSE.
(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.A8)
1955 Apr 5, Richard J. Daley was
elected mayor of Chicago. He served 6 terms until his death in 1976.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/daley1.html)(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey
p.14)
1955 Aug 28, Emmett Till (14), a
black teen-ager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in
Money, Miss., by white men after he had supposedly whistled at Carolyn
Bryant, a white woman; he was found murdered three days later.
Eyewitnesses linked Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant and half-brother J.W.
Milam to the murder. Bryant and Milam were indicted Sep 10 for a trial
on Sep 19. Both were acquitted by an all-white jury. Bryant and Milan
later confessed to the killing in a magazine interview. The area was a
cotton-trading center where the white Citizens Councils maintained
their regional headquarters. In 2004 the US Justice Dept. opened a
criminal investigation into the case. In 2005 the US Senate
acknowledged a share in the boy’s death.
(AP, 8/28/99)(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A4)(SFC, 6/14/05,
p.A2)(SFC, 9/9/05, p.F5)(SFC, 3/17/06, p.A5)
1955 Aug 31, 1st sun-powered
automobile demonstrated, Chicago, Ill.
(YN, 8/31/99)
1955 Esther Friedman (2002) took
over the Ann Landers advice column in the Chicago Sun Times. Pauline
Friedman, her twin sister, went on to write the Dear Abby advice
column. Esther was the wife of Jules Lederer, founder of Budget Rent A
Car. They divorced in 1975.
(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A20)(Reuters, 6/23/02)(SSFC,
6/23/02, p.A10)
1955 Robert R. McCormick (b.1880),
head of the Chicago Tribune, died. In 1997 Richard Norton Smith
published his biography: "The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R.
McCormick."
(WSJ, 6/19/97, p.A16)
1956 Apr 14, Ampex Corporation
demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder, later renamed the
Mark IV, at the National Association of Radio and Television
Broadcasters Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 4/14/00)
1957 Margaret Hillis (d.1998 at
76) founded the Chicago Symphony Chorus.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.21)
1958 Jul 16, Michael Flatley,
Irish choreographer (Lord of Dance), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1958 Dec 1, In Chicago Our Lady of
Angels School burned. 92 students and 3 nuns were killed.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1958 Chicago’s 18-story Inland
Steel Building at 30 W. Monroe St. was built. It was designed by Mies
van der Rohe and built by Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1959 In Chicago Kikkoman first
introduced soy sauce to American consumers at an International Trade
Fair.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.68)
1959-1974 Chicago’s Federal Center at 219 S. Dearborn
St. was built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1960 Mar 13, NFL's Chicago
Cardinals moved to St Louis.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1960 Apr 12, Bill Veeck and
Chicago’s Comiskey Park debuted the "Exploding Scoreboard."
(MC, 4/12/02)
1960 Jul 27, Vice President Nixon
was nominated for president at the Republican national convention in
Chicago.
(AP, 7/27/00)
1960 Nov 8, John Kennedy defeated
Richard Nixon in the US pres. elections. Popular legend later held that
the political machine of Richard Daley in Chicago provided the
necessary votes for Kennedy to win Illinois and the elections.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B5)
1960 Dec 3, Daryl Hannah, film
star, was born in Chicago, Ill.
(SSFC, 2/14/04, Par p.18)
1960 John F. Kennedy asked his
friend Frank Sinatra for help in the West Virginia primary for
presidential elections. Sinatra asked his friend Sam Giancana to assist
in this matter. The story is documented in a 1995 biography of
Sinatra by his daughter Nancy titled: "Frank Sinatra: An American
Legend." JFK used his young lover Judith Campbell to carry messages and
money to Sam Giancana. The story was told in a 1997 A&E TV show
series titled "Godfathers," that focused on the biography of Sam
Giancana.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 1/8/96, p.B2)
1960 Joseph P. Kennedy was later
reported to have held a meeting with Chicago mobster Sam Giancana to
encourage the mob-run unions to vote for JFK. The events were later
described in the 1997 book "The Dark Side of Camelot" by Seymour Hersh.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.A12)
1960 Hugh Hefner (b.1926), in
partnership with Victor Lownes and restaurateur Arnold Morton (d.2005),
opened the 1st Playboy Club in Chicago.
(SFC, 5/30/05, p.B4)
1960-1966 Marina City, a pair of cylindrical
apartment towers, was constructed built. The design was by Bertrand
Goldberg (d.1997 at 84).
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A19)
1961 Sep 8, Frank Rosenthal
(1929-2008), friend of Chicago mobsters, appeared before a Senate
hearing on gambling and organized crime. He invoked the Fifth Amendment
38 times.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.B8)
1961 A "Bozo the Clown" show began
on Chicago’s WGN-TV. The last show was taped in 2001.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.E3)
1962 The Dan Ryan freeway opened
along the south side of Chicago. It was named after a late president of
the Cook county Board of Commissioners.
(WSJ, 4/21/06, p.A1)
1962 Sears, the Chicago-based
retailer, hired film star Vincent Price to pick art pieces and serve as
spokesman for selling its “Vincent price Collection of Fine Art.”
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.D8)
1963 Oct 22, 225,000 students
boycotted Chicago schools in a Freedom Day protest.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1963 Oct, Pres. Kennedy spoke with
Mayor Daley of Chicago to get congressman Roland Libonati to vote the
Party line. The conversation was recorded.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.43)
1964 Chicago’s Marina Center at
300 N. State St. was built. The pair of 60-story towers were designed
by Bertram Goldberg.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1965 Aug 12, There was a race riot
in West Side of Chicago.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1966 Jan 17, Martin Luther King
Jr. opened a campaign in Chicago.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1966 Jul 12, There were race riots
in Chicago.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1966 Jul 14, In Chicago Richard
Speck murdered 8 student nurses in a Chicago dormitory. He made a
videotape in prison and admitted to the killings. Gloria Davy, Patricia
Matusek, Nina Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann
Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Paison; all nursing
students at the South Chicago Community Hospital; were raped then
strangled or stabbed to death by Richard Speck. One survivor,
Cora Amurao, identified Richard Speck, and he was put in jail. He
was serving consecutive sentences of 50 to 150 years and died of a
heart attack in 1991 at age 49. The video shows him having sex and
snorting cocaine in prison.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(TMC, 1994, p.1966)(AP,
7/14/97)(MC, 7/14/02)
1966 Aug 5, Martin Luther King Jr.
was stoned during a march in Chicago.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1967 Apr 21, Northern Illinois was
struck by 17 tornadoes, including several in the Chicago metropolitan
area. One violent tornado moved through Belvidere (east of Rockford),
killing 24 people and injuring another 450, including 13 deaths at the
local high school. Damage to Belvidere totaled about $20 million,
including destruction of 400 cars at the local Chrysler plant. A
second violent tornado touched down in Elgin and moved northeast to
Lake Zurich, causing $10 million damage. A third violent tornado
touched down near Palos Hills and moved across the south side of
Chicago to Lake Michigan. This tornado struck during Friday rush hour,
and many of the 33 deaths and 500 injuries occurred in vehicles stopped
at traffic lights. Over $50 million damage was reported from the
tornado outbreak.
(www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/trivia/aprtriv.php)
1967 A record 23 inches of snow
fell in Chicago.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A5)
1968 Aug 26, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Chicago. Thousands of antiwar
demonstrators took to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War
during the Democratic National Convention.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1968 Aug 27, Tom Haden, anti-war
organizer, was beaten up, put in a paddy wagon and whisked off to a
Cook County Jail.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p1)
1968 Aug 28, In Chicago, Ill.,
Vice-President Hubert Horatio Humphrey was nominated by the Democrats
for US Presidency on the first ballot. Riots broke out outside the
Democratic National Convention as police and anti-war demonstrators
clashed in the streets.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687) (TMC, 1994, p.1968)(Hem, 8/96,
p.86-88)(AP, 8/28/97)
1968 Aug 28, Connecticut Senator
Abraham Ribicoff (1910-1998) nominated George McGovern for the US
Presidency and strongly criticized Chicago’s Mayor Daly for his
strong-arm tactics in controlling protestors at the Democratic National
Convention.
(SFC, 2/23/98,
p.A5)(www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/abrahamribicoff1968dnc.htm)
1968 Aug 29, Maine Sen. Edmund
Muskie was chosen to be the Democratic nominee for vice president at
the party's convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1968 Oct 26, Illinois state and
the city of Chicago recognized Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable
(1745-1818), a Haitian-born sea captain, as the founder of Chicago.
(www.usps.com/communications/community/_pdf/bhm06_poster.pdf)(http://tinyurl.com/cnt6tk)
1969 Prof. Edward Shils
(1911-1995), Univ. of Chicago sociologist, published "Dreams of
Plenitude, Nightmares of Scarcity" in which he compared the radicalism
of the 1930s to that of the 1960s.
(WSJ, 7/21/97,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Shils)
1968 Wayne Huizenga and Dean
Buntrock established Waste Management Inc. in Chicago. It became a
public company in 1971.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A14)
1969 Mar 20, The Chicago 8 were
indicted in aftermath of Chicago Democratic convention.
(www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/chicago68/index.shtml)
1969 Sep 24, The trial of the
"Chicago Eight" (later seven) began. Demonstrations began outside the
court house, with the "Weatherman" group proclaiming the "Days of Rage"
in protest of the trial. The Chicago Eight staged demonstrations at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest the Vietnam War
and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice
President Hubert Humphrey. These anti-Vietnam War protests were some of
the most violent in American history as the police and national
guardsmen beat antiwar protesters, innocent bystanders and members of
the press. Five defendants (Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,
David Dellinger, Rennie Davis) were convicted of crossing state lines
to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; the
convictions were ultimately overturned. In 1970 Harold Jacobs authored
"Weatherman." In 2004 Jeremy Varon authored "Bringing the War Home: The
Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction and Revolutionary Violence in
the Sixties and Seventies."
(AP, 9/24/99)(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A5)
1969 Nov 5, In Chicago Judge
Hoffman ordered that the trial of Bobby Seale be separated from 7
others in the Chicago 8 trial. Seale, the founder of the Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense and one of the Chicago Eight, was later
sentenced to four years in prison on sixteen counts of contempt of
court.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/chronology.html)(SFEC,
11/7/99, p.A5)
1969 Dec 4, Police stormed an
apartment on the West Side and killed 2 Black Panthers, Fred Hampton
and Mark Clark. Panther defense minister Bobby Rush had left the site
just hours earlier.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA4)
1970 Feb 15, William Kunstler,
Chicago defense attorney, got a four-year sentence on contempt charges
for his conduct during the Chicago Seven trial.
(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28417105_ITM)
1970 Feb 18, The Chicago Seven
defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the
1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating
the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, but those convictions were later reversed.
In January reporter J. Anthony Lukas published "The Barnyard Epithet
and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial."
(AP, 2/18/08)(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)
1970 Orville Redenbacker’s Gourmet
Popping corn was launched at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s. Partners
Charlie Bowman (1919-2009) and Orville Redenbacker (d.1995) sold the
popular brand in 1976 to Hunt-Wessen Foods Inc. The company was later
acquired by ConAgra Foods.
(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A4)
1971 Dec 18, Reverend Jesse
Jackson announced in Chicago the founding of Operation PUSH (People
United to Save Humanity).
(AP, 12/18/99)
1971 Mike Royko, Chicago newspaper
columnist, wrote "Boss," a book on Mayor Richard M. Daley.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A6)
1972 Oct 30, 45 people were killed
when an Illinois Central Gulf commuter train collided with another
train in Chicago's South Side.
(AP, 10/30/97)
1972 The International Monetary
market opened. The Chicago futures market first began trading financial
derivatives. Leo Melamed, a former lawyer, launched currency futures on
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 11/19/04, p.A8)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.79)(Econ,
1/24/09, SR p.10)
1973 Apr 13, Henry Darger
(b.1892), "outsider artist" and janitor, died in Chicago. He had spent
as many as 40 years working on a 15,000 page novel titled "The Story of
the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal,
of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave
Rebellion. He illustrated the work with some 300 watercolors that were
lifted and recomposed from popular sources. In 2002 John MacGregor
authored a 720-page study of Darger. In 2003 Jessica Wu premiered her
documentary film on Darger, “In the Realms of the Unreal,” at Sundance.
(SFC, 9/20/97,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger)(SFC, 1/15/02,
p.A14)(SFC, 12/18/04, p.E1)
1973 Apr 26, The Chicago Board
Options Exchange (CBOE) was founded.
(www.cboe.com/AboutCBOE/ShowDocument.aspx?DIR=ACNews&FILE=20050426.doc)
1973 May 3, Chicago's Sears Tower,
world's tallest building (443 m), topped out. Sears soon moved its
headquarters to the Sears Tower.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)
1974 Pres. Gerald R. Ford
appointed Edward H. Levi (d.2000), president of the Univ. of Chicago,
as his attorney general.
(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A46)
1975 Feb 25, Elijah Muhammad
(b.1897 as Elijah Poole), US leader of the Detroit-based Nation of
Islam and Black Muslims, died in Chicago. His son W. Deen Mohammed
(1933-2008) was soon elected supreme minister of the Nation of Islam.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Muhammad)(USAT,
2/13/97, p.6D)(SFC, 2/28/00, p.A3)(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B5)
1975 Jun 19, Sam Giancana
(b.1908), Italian-American mob boss, was murdered at his home in Oak
Park, Ill. He had a romance with Phillis McGuire, of the McGuire
Sisters vocal group, and was credited with assisting John F. Kennedy in
efforts to win the presidential election. A movie was made in 1995 that
depicts the Giancana-McGuire romance.
(WSJ, 11/16/95,
p.A-18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Giancana)
1975 Gene Siskel (1946-1999) and
Roger Ebert (b.1942) began reviewing movies on television on Chicago’s
public broadcasting’s WTTV. They jumped to commercial TV in 1982.
(SFC, 7/22/08, p.E2)
1975 Four Seasons opened its
74-story Water Tower Place. It included a Ritz-Carlton Hotel and
condominiums.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.C9)
1976 Aug 9, John Roselli (b.1905),
Chicago mobster hired by the CIA to kill Castro, was found murdered.
His decomposing body was found in a 55-gallon steel fuel drum floating
in Dumfounding Bay near Miami, Florida. Roselli had been strangled and
stabbed and his legs were sawed off.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Roselli)
1976 Dec 20, Chicago Mayor Richard
J. Daley died at age 74. In 2000 Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
authored the biography: "American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley: His
Battle for Chicago and the Nation."
(AP, 12/20/97)(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)(SFEC, 7/16/00,
BR p.1)
1976 Father John Cusick founded
"Theology On Tap," a program aimed to reach young Catholics in bars.
(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.W15)
1976 Robert Lucas, economist at
the Univ. of Chicago, explained how unanticipated inflation eroded the
real value of wages. In 1995 Lucas won the Nobel Prize in Economic
Science.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.68)
1976-1998 Chicago’s Gautreaux Assisted Housing
Program helped more than 25,000 voluntary participants move to more
than 100 communities throughout the metropolitan area, roughly half to
integrated suburbs and half to integrated neighborhoods in the city.
(www.bpichicago.org/pht/gautreaux.html)
1977 Feb 4, In Illinois 11 people
were killed when two cars of a Chicago Transit Authority train fell off
elevated tracks after a collision with another train.
(AP, 2/4/02)
1977 Aug 27, "Chicago" closed at
46th St Theater in NYC after 947 performances.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1977 Dec, In Chicago a gang of
burglars decided to break into the home of Tony Accardo (d.1992), one
of the most powerful men in organized crime history, and rob his
basement vault. 6 men Accardo blamed for the heist were swiftly hunted
down and murdered.
(AP, 6/18/07)
1978 Feb 16, The 1st Computer
Bulletin Board System was Ward & Randy's CBBS in Chicago.
(www.historyoftheinternet.com/chap3.html)
1978 Mar 4, Chicago Daily News,
founded in 1875, published its last issue.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Daily_News)
1978 May 11, Carol Schmal (23) and
Lawrence Lionberg (29) were murdered in Chicago. Four men were arrested
for rape and murder and 2 of the men were sentenced to death. In 1999
Kenny Adams, Willie Rainge, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams were
released after a journalism class proved their innocence. The men then
filed a suit and settled with Cook County for $36 million.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A3)
1978 Jul 9, American Nazi Party
held a rally at Marquette Park, Chicago.
{Nazi, USA, Chicago}
(www.skokiehistory.info/chrono/nazis.html)
1978 The Chicago Daily News closed
and columnist Mike Royko went to the Chicago Sun-Times.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A6)
1978 The Chicago Food Depository
opened with its main mission to feed the hungry. In 1998 it began to
offer chef training classes to help people get jobs.
(WSJ, 11/28/06, p.A1)
1978 Restaurateur Arnold Morton
(d.2005) opened the 1st Morton’s Steakhouse in Chicago’s Gold Coast
neighborhood. Morton sold the chain in the late 1980s. In 2005 there
were 65 Morton’s Steakhouses around the world.
(SFC, 5/30/05, p.B4)
1979 Feb 27, Jane M. Byrne
confounded Chicago's Democratic political machine as she upset Mayor
Michael A. Bilandic to win their party's mayoral primary. Byrne went on
to win the election.
(AP, 2/27/99)
1979 Apr 3, Jane M. Byrne (D) was
elected as the 1st woman mayor of Chicago, defeating Republican Wallace
D. Johnson.
(AP, 4/3/97)(MC, 4/3/02)
1979 May 25, 273 people died in
America's worst domestic air disaster when an American Airlines DC-10
crashed during takeoff at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The
left engine was lost on takeoff. 3 of the dead were on the ground.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(AP, 5/25/07)
1979 Jul 12, "Disco Demolition
Night" at Comiskey Park, caused fans to go wild. It also caused the
White Sox to forfeit 2nd game of a doubleheader to Tigers.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1979 Chicago closed off 9 blocks
of State St. for a transit only mall. The plan failed and after 9 years
it was refurbished for $24 million and opened to cars.
(SFC,11/24/97, p.A1)
1979 The Pritzker Prize, an Int’l.
for award for Architecture, was begun by Jay Pritzker, found of the
Hyatt Hotel chain. The first winner was Philip Johnson for his Glass
House in New Canaan, Conn.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A24)(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.D8)(WSJ,
6/15/99, p.A16)
1980 Mar 12, A Chicago jury found
John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. The next
day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in 1994.
(AP, 3/12/00)
1980 Jun 16, The film "Blues
Brothers" premiered in Chicago. National release was June 20.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/releaseinfo)
1980 Sep 28, Lanford Wilson's
"Balm in Gilead," premiered in Chicago on the Steppenwolf stage. In
1984 it moved to NYC.
(www.tomwaitslibrary.com/Theatre/Balmingilead/balmingilead.htm)
1980 Nov 10, News anchor Dan
Rather refused to pay his Chicago cabbie and CBS paid the $12.55 fare.
(http://mediamatters.org/items/200501130005)
1981 May 25, Daredevil Daniel
Goodwin, wearing a "Spiderman" costume, scaled the outside of Chicago’s
Sears Tower in seven and a-half hours.
(AP, 5/25/01)
1981 Nov 11, Stuntman Dan Goodwin
scaled the outside of the 100-story John Hancock Center in Chicago in
nearly six hours.
(AP, 11/11/97)
1981 The MacArthur Foundation of
Chicago began a fellowship program with annual grants to allow winners
to pursue creative goals.
(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.A25)
1982 Jan, In Chicago Lloyd
Wickliffe, a security guard, was killed in a McDonald's restaurant.
Later Andrew Wilson (d.2008) told his lawyers that he, and not Alton
Logan, had killed the guard. On March 17 Lawyers Kunz, Coventry and
Miller signed a notarized affidavit: "I have obtained information
through privileged sources that a man named Alton Logan ... who was
charged with the fatal shooting of Lloyd Wickliffe ... is in fact not
responsible for that shooting...” In 2008 Logan was still in jail
waiting for a new trial.
(AP, 4/12/08)
1982 Jul 10, Pope John Paul II
named Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati to succeed the late
Cardinal John Cody as head of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
(AP, 7/10/02)
1982 Sep 29, Extra-Strength
Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide claimed the first of seven victims
in the Chicago area. As of 2008 the case remained unsolved.
(http://judicial-inc.biz/t_tylenol_murders_supplement.htm)(AP, 9/29/08)
1982 George Stigler (1911-1991) of
the Univ. of Chicago won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
(Econ, 11/25/06, p.80)
1982 Charles F. Ehret (1923-2007),
a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, released the “Argonne
Anti-Jet-Lag Diet.”
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
1982 The German Otto family
purchased the Chicago-based Spiegel catalog retailer.
(WSJ, 3/2/04, p.A6)
1983 Feb 22, Harold Washington
(1922-1987) won Chicago's Democratic mayoral primary.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/washingtonelected.html)
1983 Apr 29, Harold Washington was
sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)
1983 Apr 30, McKinley Morganfield
(68), better known as Muddy Waters, died at his suburban home in
Westmont, Illinois. The US blues singer and guitarist (Mad Love) was
known as the King of the Blues. The Mississippi-born guitarist
revolutionized the genre in Chicago in the 1940s and 50s with his
electric blues.
(www.muddywaters.com/bio.html)
1983 Bobby Rush, former Black
Panther, was elected to the City Council.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA4)
1984 Sep 9, Walter Payton of the
Chicago Bears broke Jim Brown's combined yardage record by reaching
15,517 yards.
(http://tinyurl.com/2sd85s)
1984 In Chicago J.S.G. Boggs
(b.1955) exchanged the sketch of a dollar bill for a cup of coffee and
received 10 cents change. This began his career drawing money for a
living. In 1999 Lawrence Wechsler published "Boggs: A Comedy of Values."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/14/09, p.W8)
1984 Michael Jordan began playing
for the Chicago Bulls basketball team. He retired in 1999. David
Halberstam published "Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World
He Made."
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W1)
1984 The Chicago Sun-Times was
bought by a group controlled by Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch who
also owned the New York Post. Mike Royko quit and joined the Chicago
Tribune.
(SFC, 4/30/97, p.A6)
1985 May 16, Michael Jordan of the
Chicago Bulls was named NBA Rookie of Year.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tostx)
1985 Navigation Technologies
(NavTech) was started by Russell Shields. It grew to become one of the
premier suppliers of digital-map databases in the world. By 2007
Chicago-based Navtech had around 3,000 employees in 168 offices in 30
countries. Finland’s Nokia Corp. purchased Navteq in 2007.
(Wired, Dec., '95, p.96)(AP, 10/1/07)
1986 Jan 2, Bill Veeck (71) former
baseball owner, died in Chicago. He is remembered for his
well-publicized stunts and promotional gimmicks, including an exploding
scoreboard and a midget pinch-hitter.
(AP, 1/2/06)
1986 Jul 25, Marc Smith, NYC
construction worker turned poet, held the first poetry slam at the
Green Mill jazz club in Chicago. He pitted writers against one another
in a test of writing skills and performance.
(Econ, 8/16/08,
p.83)(www.slampapi.com/new_site/background.htm)
1986 The Super Bowl was won by the
Chicago Bears led by Coach Mike Ditka. Lineman William "Refrigerator"
Perry scored touchdowns and the team danced to their video "The Super
Bowl Shuffle."
(WSJ, 9/24/97, p.B1)
1987 Feb 26, NBA's Michael
Jordan's scored 58 points for a Chicago Bull record.
(www.nba.com/jordan/hoop_86-87.html)
1987 Apr 7,
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington handily won a second term, quashing a
challenge by archrival Edward Vrdolyak.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1987 Nov 25, Harold Washington,
the first black mayor of Chicago, died at age 65 after suffering a
heart attack in his City Hall office.
(AP, 11/25/97)
1987 Dec 2, After a chaotic
meeting that had begun the night before, the Chicago City Council
elected Eugene Sawyer acting mayor, succeeding the late Harold
Washington.
(AP, 12/2/97)
1987 Allan Bloom, prof. at the
Univ. of Chicago, published "The Closing of the American Mind."
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.W11)
1987 River City, a pair of
17-story undulating apartments, was completed. The design was by
Bertrand Goldberg (d.1997 at 84).
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A19)
1988 Feb 25, Chicago gave the Cubs
baseball team the right to install lights and play up to 18 night games.
(http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/chc/history/timeline10.jsp)
1988 Aug 22, Speaking to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars in Chicago, Vice President George Bush
defended the Vietnam-era National Guard service of running mate Dan
Quayle, saying, "He did not go to Canada, he did not burn his draft
card and he damn sure didn't burn the American flag."
(AP, 8/22/98)
1988 Chicago Tribune reporter Ann
Marie Lipinski won a Pulitzer Prize for a 10-month investigative series
on corruption in the Chicago City Council.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.8)
c1988 Norma Alcantana and Frank
Dueno originated a scheme for smuggling in deaf Mexicans to sell
trinkets on the streets and later to have traded trinket vendors to a
New York operation led by Renato Paoletti-Lemus.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A4)
1989 Feb 28, In Chicago, Richard
M. Daley, son of Mayor Richard J. Daley who served as mayor for 21
years, defeated acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer in a Democratic primary
election.
(SFC, 2/24/99, p.A3) (AP, 2/28/99)
1989 Jan 25, Michael Jordan scored
his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th season.
(www.nba.com/jordan/mj8889.html)
1989 Mar 12, Some 2,500 veterans
and supporters marched at the Art Institute of Chicago to demand that
officials remove an American flag placed on the floor as part of a
student's exhibit.
(AP, 3/12/99)
1989 Apr 4, Democrat Richard M.
Daley was elected mayor of Chicago, defeating Republican Edward R.
Vrdolyak and independent Timothy C. Evans.
(AP, 4/4/99)
1989 Apr 24, Richard M. Daley was
inaugurated as the 45th mayor of Chicago.
(AP, 4/24/99)
1989 Four Seasons opened its
66-story 900 North Michigan development. It included a Four Season
Hotel and a Bloomingdale’s store. It was developed by Urban Retail
Properties Inc. of Chicago.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.C9)
1989 Marc Smith founded the
National Poetry Slam at the Green Mill outsider poetry readings.
(WSJ, 9/10/98, p.A20)
1990 Jul 28, A blackout hit
Chicago.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1990 Chicago’s 50-story tower at
181 W. Madison St. was built. It was designed by Cesar Pelli. Murals by
Frank Stella decorated the lobby.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
1990 The Nobel Prize for economics
was awarded to Merton M. Miller (d.2000) of the Univ. of Chicago for
his work in the theory of financial economics. Harry Markowitz and
William F. Sharpe were also winners. Harry Markowitz won the Nobel
Prize for his 1952 theory behind portfolio diversification.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-1)(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-18)(WSJ,
10/21/96, p.A18)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A2)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A17)
1991 Jun 12, The Chicago Bulls won
their first N-B-A championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four
games to one.
(AP, 6/12/01)
1991 Dec 5, Richard Speck, who
murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966 died of a heart attack
in prison a day short of his 50th birthday.
(USA Today, 5/14/96, p.3A)(AP, 7/14/97)(AP, 12/5/97)
1991 The 45-story tower at 500 W.
Monroe St. opened. In 2002 it was sold to the Shorenstein Co. for $250
million.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.B1)
1992 Allan Bloom, political
philosopher at the Univ. of Chicago, died. His books included "The
Closing of the American Mind" and a translation of Plato’s "Republic."
His "Love and Friendship" was published posthumously. In 2000 Saul
Bellow authored the novel "Ravelstein" based on Bloom.
(WSJ, 4/14/00, p.W11)
1993 Jan 8, In Palatine, a suburb
of Chicago, 7 people were shot to death at a fried chicken restaurant.
The victims were forced into two walk-in coolers and shot a total of 24
times with a .38. Some were also stabbed and one had their throat slit.
Their bodies were found the next day. On May 16, 2002, Juan Luna (28)
and James Degorski (29) were arrested and confessed to the killings.
"They just did it to do something big."
(AP,
1/9/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown's_Chicken_massacre)
1993 Jul 26, President Clinton
launched a harder sell for his budget at a conference in Chicago,
accusing Republicans of gridlock.
(AP, 7/26/98)
1993 Nov 12, Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin of Chicago was accused by a former pre-seminary student of
sexual abuse supposedly committed more than a decade earlier. (The
accuser, Steven J. Cook, later withdrew his charge).
(AP, 11/12/98)
1994 Jul 15, During a baseball
game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in
Chicago's Comiskey Park, umpire Dave Phillips ordered the bat of Albert
Belle of the Indians to be removed from the game for later examination
for illegal cork. The bat was then stolen by pitcher Jason Grimsley,
who crawled through air ducts to take it. The Indians won the game 3-2
and later returned the bat under umpire threats and Belle was given a
10-game suspension that was reduced to 7 games.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.A3)
1994 Sep 1, Chicago police found
the body of 11-year-old Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, a suspect in a
gang-related killing who apparently became a victim of gang violence.
(AP, 9/1/99)
1994 The United Center, owned by
the NBA Bulls and NHL Blackhawks, was completed for $175 million.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A3)
1994 Delray Farms Inc., a food
chain started by 3 graduates of the Harvard Business School, opened its
first Chicago-area store.
(WSJ, 11/6/97, p.B1)
1994 Two boys aged 10 and 11
dropped 5-year-old Eric Morse 14 floors to his death in a housing
project after he refused to steal candy for them.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A3)
1995 Mar 19, After giving up an
attempt to become a major league baseball player, Michael Jordan
returned to pro basketball with his former team, the Chicago Bulls.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1995 Aug 22, Congressman Mel
Reynolds (Democrat, Illinois) was convicted in Chicago of sexual
misconduct involving an underage campaign volunteer. Reynolds was
sentenced to five years in prison; he was later convicted of lying to
obtain loans and of illegally siphoning campaign money for personal
use. Reynolds was later sentenced to five years in prison; he ended up
serving 2 1/2.
(AP, 8/22/05)
1995 Ira Glass revitalized radio
storytelling with “This American Life,” a show on Chicago Public Radio
KBEZ featuring stories of ordinary people facing moments of truth.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.E1)
1995 Navy Pier was redeveloped and
became a popular tourist attraction.
(WSJ, 11/11/99, p.A24)
1995 The Pritzker family, led by
Jay and Robert, agreed to increase family stipends from $100,000 a year
at age 25 to $1 million a year after age 40 along with some lump sum
payments totaling $25 million.
(WSJ, 12/11/02, p.A9)
1995 A heat wave was blamed for
some 700 deaths this year.
(DFP, 7/24/01, p.3A)
1996 Feb 19, Charlie O. Finley
(77), baseball showman died in Chicago.
(AP, 2/19/07)
1996 Jul 1, Draugas, the
Lithuanian daily newspaper published in Chicago, issued its first
English version edition and planned a weekly English edition. The first
subscribed edition was planned for Aug 31.
(Dr, 7/96, V1#1, p.3)
1996 Nov 14, Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin, the senior Roman Catholic prelate in the United States and
leader of Chicago's 2.3 million Catholics, died at his home at age 68,
surrounded by family and friends.
(SFC, 11/15/96, p.C7)(AP, 11/14/97)
1996 Chicago’s Museum of
Contemporary Art opened on Chicago Ave. It was designed by Josef Paul
Kleihues (d.2004), German-born architect. The Kleihues theory of
“poetic rationalism” described a style that sought to reinvent the way
cities were designed and enrich the functionalist trend of late-modern
architecture.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.B7)
1996 Barack Obama (b.1961) was
elected to the Illinois senate representing the 13th District of
Chicago’s South Side.
(WSJ, 2/11/08,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama)
1997 Jan, Patrick Sykes (25)
sexually assaulted and beat a 9-year-old girl. Girl X was left blind,
unable to walk and brain-damaged. Sykes was convicted in 2001.
(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A4)
1997 Mar 21, In Chicago 3
white teenagers attacked and severely injured a 13-year-old black boy.
Lenard Clark (13) was left brain damaged. The suspects, Frank Caruso
(18), Victor Jasas (17), and Michael Kwidzinski (19) were released on
bonds of $150,000 with charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery
and a hate crime. Caruso was convicted in 1998 and was sentenced to 8
years in prison. The other 2 pleaded guilty to reduced charges and were
let off with probation and community service.
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.A7)(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A6)
1997 Apr 29, Newspaper columnist
Mike Royko died in Chicago at age 64.
(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)
1997 Apr, Sonia Hernandez (43), a
teacher was shot and killed. Police arrested Don Olmetti (17), based on
an anonymous tip, who confessed after police reportedly hit him during
an 18-hour interrogation. Olmetti claimed initially claimed that he was
in class a mile from the shooting. Olmetti was released after almost 2
years in jail when school records verified that he was in class at the
time of the shooting.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A11)
1997 Oct 4, The Chicago Field
Museum of Natural History paid $8,362,500 for the T, rex skull from S.
Dakota at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 29, Nathaniel Abraham
(11) shot and killed Ronnie Greene Jr. (18). Abraham was convicted of
2nd degree murder in 1999.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A3)
1997 Dec 15, The 5,000-resident
Ida B. Wells project was the focus of a PBS documentary by Frederick
Wiseman.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.E1)
1998 Feb 18, Harry Caray, baseball
broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs and other teams, died at age 77.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 13, The Ku Klux Klan
agreed not to march through Cicero after town officials agreed on a
plan to distribute the group’s literature to residents with funding
from an anonymous $10,000 donation.
(WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 14, The Chicago Bulls
clinched their sixth NBA championship, defeating the Utah Jazz in game
six played in Salt Lake City, 87-86.
(AP, 6/14/03)
1998 Jul 23, The Pacific Stock
Exchange announced an agreement to merge with the Chicago Board of
Options Exchange.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 27, In Chicago two boys,
aged 7 and 8, reportedly killed an 11-year-old girl, Ryan Harris, with
a thrown rock that caused the girl to fall and hit her head. The boys
dragged her to a wooded area and began to play with her body and later
lied to police. The boys faced the juvenile equivalent of first degree
murder. Her body was found the next day. Later evidence of semen caused
prosecutors to drop murder charges against the boys. The boys later
sued Chicago for false arrest and settled for $6.2 million. In
September police arrested another suspect whose DNA matched that found
on Ryan. The charges on the 2 boys were dropped Sept 4 and in 1999
Floyd Durr was indicted for the murder of Ryan Harris. On March 4, 2005
Floyd Durr, was convicted of three counts of predatory criminal sexual
assault and one count of aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to
20-year terms of imprisonment on the former convictions and a 15-year
term of imprisonment on the latter. On April 10, 2006, Durr was
sentenced to life plus 30 years in exchange for pleading guilty to
raping and killing Ryan.
(SFC, 8/11/98, p.A3)(SFC, 9/5/98, p.A3)(SFC,
9/23/98, p.A6)(USAT, 3/24/99, p.6A) (http://tinyurl.com/6rkl3d)
1998 Jul, 28, The body of Ryan
Harris (11) was found. [see Jul 27]
(SFC, 9/23/98, p.A6)
1998 Jul, The Asian long-horned
beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis, was discovered in the Ravenswood
neighborhood. A quarantine and winter destruction of infected trees was
planned. The beetle was detected in New York in 1996.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A11)
1998 Sep 13 Sammy Sosa of the
Chicago Cubs hit his 61st and 62nd home runs of the season, passing
Roger Maris' record and pulling into a tie with St. Louis' Mark McGwire.
(AP, 9/13/99)
1998 Sep 14, In Chicago Vincas
Valkavickas (78), a retired factory worker, was put under deportation
proceedings. A complaint alleged that he assisted Nazi forces as a
Lithuanian police officer and guarded Jewish men, women and children
between 1941-1944 at Svencionys, Lithuania.
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A3)
1998 Oct 29, Harry Weese, Chicago
architect, died. His buildings included the Time and Life Building and
the Metropolitan Corrections Center. His firm was also contracted for
the 100-mile metro system in Washington DC, which was completed in 1976.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.C7)
1998 Nov 12, Chicago Mayor Richard
M. Daley filed a $433 million lawsuit against the firearms industry,
declaring that it had created a public nuisance by flooding the streets
with weapons deliberately marketed to criminals. A judge dismissed the
lawsuit in 2000; an appeals court ruled in 2002 that the city of
Chicago could proceed; but the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed the
lawsuit in 2004.
(SFC, 11/13/98, p.A4)(AP, 11/12/08)
1998 Nov, Eighteen Chicago
precincts banned the sale of alcohol in their neighborhoods. This made
468 of the city’s 2,450 precincts dry or partially dry.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 1, In Chicago a fire
destroyed the historic Pullman building.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A3)
1998 In Chicago demolition began
on the 28 towers of the Robert Taylor projects. Their construction had
only been completed in 1962. In 2008 Sudhir Venkatesh authored “Gang
Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets,” a
description of the author’s seven years (1989-1996) following J.T., a
gang leader in the projects.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A14)(Econ, 1/5/08, p.81)
1999 Jan 2, About 22 inches of
snow fell on the city and across northern Indiana.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A5)
1999 Jan 3, Chicagoans dug out
from their biggest snowstorm in more than 30 years.
(AP, 1/3/00)
1999 Jan 23, Jay Pritzker, founder
of the Hyatt hotel chain, died at age 76. He was listed in 1998 as the
20th richest man in America and created the $100,000 Pritzker
Architectural Prize in 1979.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.D8)
1999 Feb 23, Richard M. Daley was
elected to a 3rd term as mayor. He defeated former Black Panther Bobby
Rush with a 73% vote.
(SFC, 2/24/99, p.A3)
1999 Mar 8, William Wrigley
(b.1933), CEO of Chicago-based Wrigley Gum, died. His son William
Wrigley Jr. took over the company.
(WSJ, 3/11/06,
p.A10)(www.thememoryhole.org/foi/apbnews-list/)
1999 Mar 26, A jury of 13
Methodist ministers found Rev. Greg Dell guilty for officiating at the
union of 2 gay men.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A6)
1999 Apr 27, Cicero, a Chicago
suburb, declared itself a "gang-free zone." The police dept. listed 600
gang members among the 71,000 population.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A3)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.C5)
1999 Jun 4, La Tanya Haggerty
(26), a passenger in a car, was shot and killed by police during a
chase. Police said they mistook her sell phone for a gun.
(SFC, 7/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 10, The US Supreme Court
struck down a Chicago anti-loitering ordnance aimed against street
gangs.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun, Cow paintings and
sculptures began appearing on downtown streets as part of an outdoor
art project "Cows on Parade." The idea was borrowed from a 1998 event
in Zurich.
(SFC, 7/6/99, p.C6)
1999 Jun, The 25,000th McDonald's
Restaurant was scheduled to open in Bronzeville.
(WSJ, 5/13/99, p.B13)
1999 Jul 2, In northern Chicago a
driveby gunman, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith (21), killed Ricky Byrdsong,
former Northwestern Univ. basketball coach. Smith wounded 6 Orthodox
Jews. B.N. Smith fired at Asians and Blacks in 2 Illinois cities the
next day and on July 4 Smith killed Won Joon Moon (26), a Korean-born
Indiana Univ. student. He then shot himself dead during a police chase.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 20, Alain Robert (37) of
France, known as "Spiderman," was arrested after climbing the Sears
Tower without suction cups or a safety net.
(SFC, 8/21/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep 18, Sammy Sosa of the
Chicago Cubs hit his 60th homerun and became the 1st major leaguer to
hit 60 in 2 different seasons.
(WSJ, 9/20/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 1, Former Chicago Bear
NFL star Walter Payton died at age 45 from a rare cancer of the bile
duct. He made the NFL Hall of Fame in 1993.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A1,15)
1999 The new $24 million
Shakespeare Theater was completed on Navy Pier.
(WSJ, 11/11/99, p.A24)
2000 Feb 8, In Zion, Ill., 2 small
planes collided and 3 people were killed including Bob Collins, a
popular Chicago radio host for WGN-AM. One of the planes crashed into
the roof of the Midwestern Regional Medical Center.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Jun 8, Jeff MacNelly, Chicago
Tribune political cartoonist, died at age 52. He won 3 Pulitzer Prizes
and his work included the comic strip "Shoe."
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.D5)
2000 Aug 31, The tortured bodies
of 2 men were found on the South Side.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 4, The tortured bodies of
2 more men were found on the South Side several miles from the Aug 31
site.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec, The Goodman Theater
moved to a new $46 million theater building in the North Loop behind
the old Harris and Selwyn theaters.
(WSJ, 12/13/00, p.A24)
2001 May 10, Boeing picked Chicago
for its new corporate headquarters.
(WSJ, 5/11/01, p.A3)
2001 Jun 14, Paul Frederick Runge
(31) was charged with the murders of 6 women and an 11-year-old girl
between 1995-1997.
(SFC, 6/15/01, p.D2)
2001 Aug 3, An elevated commuter
train rear-ended another and over 140 people were injured.
(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 25, Mayor Richard Daley
kicked off a city-wide program for residents to read the novel: "To
Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.
(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A12)
2001 Dec 10, The Pritzker Family
agreed to pay regulators $460 mil to forestall possible civil
litigation from the failure of Superior Bank, of which they owned 50%.
(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A1)
2002 Mar 9, Scaffolding under high
winds tore loose from the John Hancock Center and fatally crushed 3
people.
(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.A6)
2002 Apr 30, Benevolence
International Foundation, an Islamic charity based in suburban Chicago,
and its director were charged with perjury and accused by the FBI of
supporting terrorists; the charity maintains its innocence. Enaam
Arnaout later pleaded guilty to racketeering, admitting he had
defrauded donors by diverting some of the money to Islamic military
groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2002 May 8, Abdullah Al Mujahir,
also known as Jose Padilla, was arrested as he flew from Pakistan into
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Padilla was alleged to be
al-Qaida connected and suspected of plotting to build and detonate a
radioactive ''dirty'' bomb in an attack in the United States. A public
announcement of his arrest was delayed until Jun 10. In 2008 Padilla
was sentenced to just over 17 years in prison for terrorism-related
charges. Adham Amin Hassoun was sentenced to over 15 years for
recruiting Padilla. Kifah Wael Jayyousi was sentenced to over 12 years
for financing the al-Qaida cell.
(AP, 6/10/02)(SFC, 1/23/08, p.A4)
2002 Jun 22, Esther Lederer (83)
known as Ann Landers, the widely read columnist who famously urged her
readers to "wake up and smell the coffee," died, in Chicago. She took
over the Ann Landers column in the Chicago Sun Times in 1955.
(Reuters, 6/23/02)(SSFC, 6/23/02, p.A10)(WSJ,
6/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 31, In Chicago a mob beat
Anthony Stuckey (49) and Jack Moore (62) to death after their van
veered into over a curb and injured 3 women on the South Side. One
woman later died from her injuries. On August 3, seven people were
charged with 1st degree murder. In 2003 Antonio Fort (16) was cleared
of 34 charges, including first-degree murder. Fort had been charged as
an adult.
(SFC, 8/1/02, p.A3)(SSFC, 8/4/02,
p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/59zyfm)
2002 Aug 10, Sammy Sosa hit three
3-run homers in Chicago's 15-1 rout of Colorado. Barry Bonds of the San
Francisco Giants broke Willie McCovey's 1969 record for intentional
walks in a season with his 46th of the year.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2002 Sep 19, Kansas City first
base coach Tom Gamboa was attacked without warning by two fans, a
father and son, who came out of the seats at Chicago's Comiskey Park.
The father, 34-year-old William Ligue Jr., and his 15-year-old son
later received probation.
(AP, 9/19/03)
2002 Dec 11, It was reported that
the Chicago-based Pritzker family planned to break up its $15 billion
empire over the next decade.
(WSJ, 12/12/02, p.B1)
2003 Jan 13-15, A TV documentary,
"Chicago City of the Century," was broadcast based on a book of the
same name by Don Miller.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.D6)
2003 Feb 16, Eleanor "Sis" Daley
(95), the matriarch of Chicago's Daley political clan, died.
(AP, 2/16/04)
2003 Feb 17, In Chicago 21
people were killed at the E2 nightclub in an early morning stampede
after security guards used mace and pepper spray to halt a fistfight
between 2 women. On Sep 23 the owner and 3 others associated with the
club were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 2/18/03, A1)(SFC, 9/24/03, p.A3)
2003 May 15, Emergency officials
rushed to a series of mock catastrophes in the Chicago area on the
busiest day of a national weeklong exercise.
(AP, 5/15/04)
2003 Jun 29, In Chicago a wooden
third-floor porch packed with dozens of friends in their early 20s
collapsed, killing 12 people as it pancaked onto porches below.
(AP, 6/29/03)
2003 Aug 27, In Chicago Salvador
Tapia (36) shot and killed 6 people inside Windy City Core Supply Inc.
autoparts warehouse. He opened fire on police and was killed. Tapia had
been fired from the auto parts warehouse six months earlier.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2003 Oct 1, Garbage workers in
Chicago went on strike.
(SFC, 10/7/03, p.A2)
2003 Oct 5, The Chicago Cubs won
their first postseason series since 1908 when they beat Atlanta 5-1 in
the decisive Game 5 of the National League playoffs.
(AP, 10/5/04)
2003 Oct 9, Chicago sanitation
workers accepted a 28% wage increase over 5 years and ended a 9-day
strike.
(SFC, 10/10/03, p.A6)
2003 Oct 15, The Florida Marlins
defeated the Chicago Cubs 9-6 in game 7 for the National League pennant.
(WSJ, 10/16/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 17, In Chicago government
workers trapped in a burning downtown office tower frantically dialed
911 as they tried to make their way through smoke-filled staircases and
hallways. 13 were found unconscious amid the smoke, 6 of them dead.
(AP, 10/18/03)
2003 Nov 7, The Cincinnati Stock
Exchange, located in Chicago, renamed itself the National Stock
Exchange. The CBOE owned 68% of it.
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.69)
2003 Dec 31, Chicago
regained the title of America's murder capital. It finished 2003
with 599 homicides. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first
time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Gary, Ind., appeared
to finish 2003 with the nation's highest per capita homicide rate for
the ninth straight year.
(AP, 1/1/04)
2003 Chicago passed the Business,
Corporate and Slavery Era Insurance Ordnance that required companies
doing business with the city to disclose any ties to slavery.
(WSJ, 5/10/05, p.A1)
2004 Jan 30, Malachi Favors (76),
jazz bassist for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, died in Chicago.
(SFC, 2/9/04, p.B4)
2004 Mar, The Sears Tower was sold
for $840 million to the Chetrit Group.
(WSJ, 5/11/04, p.C1)
2004 Jul, Chicago’s $475
million Millennium Park opened in Grant Park, 4 years overdue.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.78)(Econ, 10/6/07, p.34)
2004 Aug 31, A report was filed
with the SEC that said Conrad Black and associates systematically
looted Hollinger Int’l. of more than $400 million from 1997-2003. In
2007 Black (62) was convicted in Illinois U.S. District Court. He was
sentenced to serve 78 months in federal prison, pay Hollinger $6.1
million and a fine of $125,000. Black was guilty of diverting funds for
personal benefit from money due Hollinger International when the
company sold certain publishing assets and he obstructed justice by
taking possession of documents to which he was not entitled. Black's
three co-defendants, former Hollinger International vice presidents
John Boultbee (64) of Vancouver and Peter Y. Atkinson (60) of Toronto
and attorney Mark Kipnis (59) of Chicago were all found guilty of three
counts of mail fraud.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.C3)(WSJ, 9/1/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black)
2004 Oct 9, A bus carrying
Chicago-area tourists to a Mississippi casino crashed and overturned on
I-55 in northeastern Arkansas, killing 15 people.
(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.A6)(AP, 10/9/05)
2004 James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin
Keating and Janice L. Reiff edited “The Encyclopedia of Chicago.”
(WSJ, 10/8/04, p.W8)
2004 John Zukowsky and Martha
Thorne authored “Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture.”
(SSFC, 11/14/04, p.E4)
2004 The Chicago Sun-Times
revealed a racket in which the city was apparently hiring trucks to do
nothing. The head of the program pleaded guilty to federal charges. 35
others were charged, of whom 23 pleaded guilty.
(Econ, 3/18/06, Survey p.16)
2004 Australia’s Macquarie Bank
organized a deal to take over Chicago’s Skyway toll road under a
99-year lease for $1.8 billion.
(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 6, The Chicago-based
Pritzker family settled a family suit giving both Matthew (22) and
Liesel Pritzker (20) control of $450 million. The family fortune was
estimated at over $15 bil.
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.B1)
2005 Feb 8, Chicago’s Mayor Daly
announced that he intends to prevent the stain of crooked old Chicago
from spoiling the new city’s gleam.
(Econ, 2/12/05, p.30)
2005 Feb 28, US District Judge
Joan Humphrey Lefkow discovered the bodies of her husband and mother
inside her Chicago home. An unemployed electrician confessed to the
murders in a suicide note. In 2002 she had ordered the white
supremacist group World Church of the Creator under Matthew Hale to
remove the World Church name from its website. A cigarette butt found
in Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow's house was matched to the electrician,
Bart Ross, who killed himself Mar 9 during a traffic stop in Wisconsin,
and left a suicide note claiming responsibility for the killings.
Lefkow last fall dismissed a rambling lawsuit in which Ross claimed
that cancer treatments had disfigured his face.
(SFC, 3/2/05, p.A13)(AP, 3/11/05)(SFC, 3/11/05,
p.A1)(AP, 2/28/06)
2005 Feb, FBI agents arrested
thieves, who were unloading a semitrailer of DVDs originating from a
warehouse in Memphis, Tenn., for delivery in Chicago. 2 of the men
arrested were deputy jailers with the Cook County Sheriff’s Police
Dept. It was reported that hundreds of semitrailers are stolen or
filched from every day in the US.
(WSJ, 9/29/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 25, The Brotherhood of
Teamsters and the Service Employees Int’l. Union broke from the AFL-CIO
as 1,000 delegates gathered in Chicago for the federation’s 50th annual
convention. They formed a coalition called Change to Win with 5 other
unions with a mission to emphasize organizing rather than supporting
like-minded politicians.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 8, John H. Johnson
(b.1919) founding publisher of Ebony (1945), Jet (1951), and Ebony Man
(1985), died in Chicago.
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 8/8/05, p.B4)(AP, 8/8/06)
2005 Aug, The Chicago Sun Times
exposed a “hired truck” scandal wherein Chicago paid politically
connected truck owners to do little or no work. A federal investigation
found that many city department hiring practices were rigged. Federal
officials questioned Mayor Richard M. Daley for 2 hours.
(Econ, 9/3/05, p.33)
2005 Sep 17, A Chicago commuter
train was going almost 60 mph above the speed limit just before it
derailed, killing two people and injuring dozens.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 30, The FAA gave Chicago
the go-ahead for a $15 billion expansion of O’Hare Airport. The project
required razing nearly 500 homes, a cemetery the relocating of nearly
200 businesses in the suburbs of Bensenville, Des Plaines and Elk Grove
Village.
(SFC, 10/1/05, p.A10)
2005 Oct 22, Chicago beat the
Houston Astros 5-3 in Game 1 of baseball’s best-of-seven World Series.
(Reuters, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 26, The Chicago White Sox
beat the Houston Astros 1-0 to win their first World Series title since
1917.
(AP, 10/27/06)
2005 Dec 8, In Chicago a Southwest
Airlines jet trying to land amid heavy snow plowed off a runway at
Midway airport and into a street, killing a 6-year-old boy in a car.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Chicago’s glass towers at 71
S. Wacker and 111 S. Wacker were built.
(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.G5)
2005 Chicago began installing
high-tech surveillance cameras atop light poles in troubled
neighborhoods.
(SFC, 6/14/05, p.B1)
2006 Mar 10, Hoisting American
flags into the air, tens of thousands of immigrants, mostly Latino,
from the Chicago area marched downtown in a display of support for
immigrant rights as a bill to stiffen border enforcement awaits action
in the U.S. Senate.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Apr 17, In Chicago a jury
convicted former Gov. George Ryan of steering state contracts and
leases to political insiders during his term as secretary of state in
the 1990s and then governor for one term. He was later sentenced to 6
1/2 years in prison,
(SFC, 4/118/06, p.A5)(AP, 4/17/07)
2006 Jun 13, Luis Jimenez
(b.1940), Chicago sculptor, was killed in Hondo, New Mexico, while
hoisting pieces of a massive mustang for final assembly. The work was
installed at the Denver Airport in February, 2008.
(SFC, 6/27/06,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C3%A9nez_(sculptor))(WSJ,
2/7/08, p.A1)
2006 Jun 21, Federal prosecutors
charged more than three dozen members of a Chicago street gang with
running a drug ring that sold crack cocaine, marijuana, heroin and the
potentially lethal prescription painkiller fentanyl.
(AP, 6/21/06)
2006 Jul 11, In Chicago, a Blue
Line train derailed and started a fire during the evening rush hour,
filling a subway tunnel with smoke and forcing dozens of soot-covered
commuters to evacuate.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2006 Jul 15, A Chicago ban on the
sale of foie gras became effective. This made Chicago the 1st American
city to ban the food.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.37)
2006 Jul 19, Chicago prosecutors
reported that local police tortured scores of black suspects from the
1970s to the 1980s to extract confessions, but that the cases were too
old or too weak to prosecute.
(SFC, 7/20/06, p.A4)
2006 Sep 3, An apartment fire in
Chicago killed six children ages 3 to 14.
(AP, 9/3/07)
2006 Sep 6, In Chicago George Ryan
(72), former Illinois governor, was sentenced to 6½ years in
prison for offenses including racketeering, conspiracy and fraud.
(SFC, 9/7/06, p.A4)
2006 Oct 11, In Chicago
businessman Antoin Rezko (51), top advisor and fund-raiser for Illinois
Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was indicted for scheming to collect kickbacks
from companies doing business with the state. The fraud scheme included
political contributor Stuart Levine and other insiders.
(SFC, 10/12/06, p.A4)
2006 Oct 17, The Chicago
Mercantile Exchange announced plans to acquire the Chicago Board of
Trade for about $8 billion.
(WSJ, 10/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 24, In Chicago a gunman
who took his neighbor hostage for 23 hours over Thanksgiving ended the
standoff by killing the woman and himself.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Dec 8, In Chicago a man
carrying a cache of weapons into the Citigroup Center chained a law
firm's doors closed and fatally shot three people before a police
sniper killed him as he held a hostage at gunpoint. Authorities said
Joe Jackson (59) felt cheated over an invention.
(AP, 12/9/06)(AP, 12/10/06)
2007 Jan 21, Lovie Smith became
the first black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his
Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans Saints
39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis Colts took
the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Feb 4, Peyton Manning added
the missing ingredient to his Hall of Fame credentials by leading the
Indianapolis Colts to a 29-17 victory over the Chicago Bears in Super
Bowl XLI.
(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Chicago Equity
Office Properties (EOP), America’s largest commercial landlord,
accepted a cash offer from The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm
that valued the company at nearly $39 billion (including debt).
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 15, Hershey Co. said it
would cut about 11 percent of its workforce and reduce the number of
production lines it operates by more than a third as it spends as much
as $575 million to overhaul its manufacturing. The Chicago-based US
chocolate maker also said it will build a new, cost-efficient
manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Mexico.
(Reuters, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 17, In Chicago 3 women
were found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in two apartments on the
city's far North Side. Police had a suspect in custody. All were
Assyrian Christians, and recent immigrants to the US.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Feb 27, Chicago’s Mayor Daly
won a 6th term despite a City Hall corruption scandal.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 2, Chicago’s police
superintendent, Philip Cline, announced his retirement after 2 videos
emerged of off-duty police officers beating civilians.
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/2tt8en)
2007 Apr 2, Sam Zell, billionaire
real estate investor, reached an agreement to buy the Chicago-based
Tribune Co. in a 2-stage deal valued at $8.2 billion.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 5, Darryl Stingley (55),
a former New England Patriots player paralyzed during an on-field
collision in 1978, died in Chicago.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2007 Apr 23, A Chicago man who
spent 25 years in jail for a rape he didn't commit was fully exonerated
on the basis of new DNA evidence, bringing to 200 the number of such
cases overturned since the 1980s. Jerry Miller (48) was paroled from
jail in March 2006 after serving more than half of his 45 year sentence.
(AFP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 25, US federal
authorities arrested John P. Tomkins (42) of Dubuque, Iowa, a man
suspected of mailing dud pipe bombs to financial companies in Chicago
and Kansas City, Mo., and threatening letters that were signed "The
Bishop."
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 May 6, Carey Bell,
Mississippi-born blues harmonica player, died in Chicago.
(SFC, 5/8/07, p.B5)
2007 Jul 4, Johnny Frigo (90),
jazz violinist and bassist, died in Chicago.
(SFC, 7/6/07, p.B8)
2007 Jul 13, A US jury in Chicago
found Conrad Black guilty of criminal fraud and obstruction of justice.
Black and the others had been accused by US prosecutors of pilfering
$60 million in payments that should have benefited Hollinger
International, once the world's third-largest English language
newspaper chain, and its shareholders. Black was sentenced to a 6
1/2-year sentence and began serving it at a federal prison in Florida.
(Reuters, 7/13/07)(AP, 7/13/08)
2007 Jul 18, NYC and New Jersey
claimed $170.2 million in anti-terrorism funds, LA and Long Beach, Ca.,
claimed $72.6 million, DC claimed $61.7 million, Chicago got $47.3
million, the SF Bay Area got $34.1 million and Houston got $25 million.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.B3)
2007 Jul 24, Jolee Mohr (36) died
in Chicago just weeks after beginning an experimental gene therapy
treatment from Targeted Genetics to ease the pain the rheumatoid
arthritis in her knee. Doctors later suspected an infection of
Histoplasma capsulatum.
(SSFC, 9/16/07, p.A21)(SFC, 9/18/07, p.A4)
2007 Aug 19, Elvira Arellano (32),
an illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to
avoid being separated from her American-born son, was deported from the
US to Mexico, where she vowed to continue her campaign to change US
immigration laws.
(AP, 8/21/07)(AP, 8/19/08)
2007 Aug 28, EarthLink, the
Atlanta-based Internet provider, announced that it no longer believed
that providing citywide Wi-Fi for San Francisco was viable for the
company. Chicago abandoned plans for a city-wide Wi-Fi network to
access the Internet as EarthLink underwent restructuring.
(SFC, 8/30/07,
p.A1)(www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/08/30/too-windy-for-wi-fi.aspx)
2007 Sep 10, In Chicago mobsters
James Marcello (65), Joseph Lombardo (78), Frank Calabrese (70) and
Paul Schiro (70) were convicted of all counts including racketeering,
conspiracy, bribery, illegal gambling and tax fraud. Anthony Doyle
(62), a retired police officer, was also convicted for leaking
information to the mob known as The Outfit.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 7, Chad Schieber (35), a
Michigan police officer, died and dozens of others needed medical care
while running the Chicago Marathon as record heat and smothering
humidity forced race organizers to shut down the course midway through
the event. Kenya's Patrick Ivuti won the Chicago Marathon by a fraction
of a second; an additional 250 runners were taken to hospitals because
of heat-related ailments.
(AP, 10/8/07)(AP, 10/7/08)
2007 Nov 30, An Amtrak train and a
freight train collided on a track on the South Side of Chicago,
injuring dozens of people.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2007 Dec 1, Danny Newman (b.1919),
press agent, died at his home in Chicago. He boosted theater success
for the Lyric Opera of Chicago beginning in 1954 with the use of
subscriptions. His 1978 book “Subscribe Now” became a fund-raising
classic.
(WSJ, 12/15/07, p.A8)
2007 Johan Van Overtveldt authored
“The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the
Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business.”
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.95)
2008 Jan 29, In Mexico City Elvira
Arellano, a deported Mexican migrant who holed up in a Chicago church
to fight for immigrants' rights, rallied support for Flor Crisostomo
(28), another woman now seeking refuge in the same building.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Apr 25, In Chicago a tractor
trailer that witnesses said didn't seem to slow down rammed into a
crowded bus shelter and a Chicago Transit Authority train station
during the evening rush hour, killing two people and injuring more than
a dozen.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2008 Apr 27, It was made public
that Mars Inc. of McLean, Va., together with Berkshire Hathaway had
agreed to acquire Wrigley Co. of Chicago, Ill., for about $23 billion.
(WSJ, 4/29/08, p.A1)
2008 May 31, Barack Obama said he
has resigned his 20-year membership in the Trinity United Church of
Christ in Chicago "with some sadness" in the aftermath of inflammatory
remarks by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and more
recent fiery remarks at the church by a visiting priest.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Aug 9, Bernie Mac (50), the
actor and comedian, died in Chicago. He had teamed up in the casino
heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for
his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 11, Federal prosecutors
in NYC charged Joseph Shereshevsky and Steven Byers, partners in
Chicago-based WexTrust Capital, with raising over $250 million through
a Ponzi scheme, mainly from Orthodox Jews.
(WSJ, 8/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 12, Chicago’s archdiocese
agreed to pay over $12.6 million to settle suits by 16 people who
accused priests of sex abuse. This brought the total thus far $65
million for some 250 claims over the last 30 years.
(WSJ, 8/13/08, p.A1)
2008 Sep 18, Chicago Mayor Richard
Daly unveiled an aggressive plan to reduce heat-trapping gases. The
plan included changing building codes to promote energy efficiency and
solar panels at municipal properties as well as alternative fueling
stations.
(SFC, 9/19/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 9, Chicago’s Cook County
Sheriff Tom Dart halted evictions on foreclosed properties, saying
innocent tenants were being put on the street. But bankers said he was
breaking the law.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 24, In Chicago the mother
and brother of actress and singer Jennifer Hudson were found shot to
death on the city’s South Side. Hudson’s nephew (7) was missing. The
body of the boy was found in an SUV on Oct 27. William Balfour,
Jennifer Hudson's estranged brother-in-law, was arrested on Dec 1 at
Stateville Correctional Center on a murder warrant and released to
detectives as he awaited formal charges in the deaths of the relatives
of the singer and Oscar-winning actress.
(SFC, 10/25/08, p.A5)(AP, 10/27/08)(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Oct 31, Studs Terkel
(b.1912), Chicago radio personality and writer, died. His books
included “The Good War,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A2)
2008 Nov 4, The US Presidential
race was called for Barack Obama at 11p.m. on the East Coast. An hour
later Obama was on stage at Grant Park in Chicago, speaking to the tens
of thousands of supporters gathered there.
(AP, 11/5/08)
2008 Nov 6, David Booth (61),
chief executive of Dimensional Fund Advisors mutual fund, said he will
donate $300 million to the Univ. of Chicago’s business school.
(WSJ, 11/6/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 2, In Chicago federal
prosecutors unveiled a series of elaborate sting operations aimed at
officers who hired out to ride shotgun for drug deals and other
criminal activities. Those charged include 10 Cook County sheriff's
correctional officers, four Harvey police officers and one Chicago
police officer.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 8, The Chicago-based
Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy as it struggled with $13 billion in
debt and a drop-off in advertising.
(SFC, 12/9/08, p.D2)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year
with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides
dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since
1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007;
Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and
the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year
before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year
high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496
the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008
compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508
homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than
500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides
reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up
from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 10, A winter storm left
large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast covered in snow and freezing
rain. 10 inches of snow forced some 100 cancellations at Chicago’s
O’Hare Int’l. Airport. At least 8 inches fell on lower Michigan and
Ohio.
(SSFC, 1/11/09, p.A14)
2009 Mar 12, Anthony Doyle, former
Chicago police officer, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for
racketeering. He was accused of providing information on gangland
investigations to reputed mob boss Joseph Lombardo.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 31, Sun-Times Media
Group, the publisher of the Chicago Sun Times, filed Chapter 11
bankruptcy, becoming the 5th newspaper company to file for protection
since December.
(WSJ, 4/1/09, p.B4)
2009 Apr 20, Chicago cancelled a
$2.52 billion deal to privatize Midway Airport after a winning
consortium failed to line up funding.
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.B4)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Chicago
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