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)
1830 Chicago land sold for
about $800 per acre (in 2012 dollars).
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.88)
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, The Republican
convention operned in Chicago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Republican_National_Convention)
1860 May 18, The Republican
Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for US president and
Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as Vice President. Other
presidential candidates included William Seward and Salmon Chase.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Republican_National_Convention)(Econ,
12/1/12, p.75)
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’s water
supply tunnel into Lake Michigan was completed.
(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.C12)(http://tinyurl.com/7zmyr6v)
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)
1869 Chicago city officials
were paid for painting City Hall but used cheaper whitewash and
pocketed the difference.
(Econ, 6/6/15, p.24)
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 White
Stockings (later Chicago Cubs) beat Louisville 4-0 (1st NL shutout)
in the 1st NL game. Albert G. Spalding (1850-1915), former pitcher
for the Boston Red Stocking, had joined the Chicago White Stockings
after helping form the new National League. His move effectively
ended the National Association, baseball’s first professional
league. Spalding managed the White Stockings from 1876-1877 and
continued as a player to 1878.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb7u9ou)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spalding)
1876 Albert G. Spalding, former
pitcher for the Boston Red Stocking, joined the Chicago White
Stockings in the newly formed National League. His move effectively
ended the National Association, baseballs first professional league.
He managed the team from 1876-1877 and continued as a player to
1878.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spalding)
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.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot)(AP,
5/4/97)(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A20)
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)
1887 In Chicago some 63 hobos
gathered at a hobo jungle and formed Tourist Union #63. An ethical
code was created by Tourist Union #63 during its 1889 National Hobo
Convention in St. Louis Missouri. This code was voted upon as a
concrete set of laws to govern the Nation-wide Hobo Body and set
forth guidelines of honesty and chivalry.
(http://tinyurl.com/knx3t85)(Econ, 8/17/13, p.30)
1888 Jul 23, Raymond Chandler,
writer of detective stories, creator of the character Philip Marlow,
was born in Chicago.
(HN, 7/23/98)(SSFC, 12/21/14, p.N3)
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)
1888 In Chicago Louis Glunz set
up shop as a wine, beer and spirits merchant at Wells and Division
streets. By 2009 the Louis Glunz Beer company represented
Chicago-land consumers with the largest portfolio of Micro,
Specialty and Import Beers with 665 brands and 172 breweries
worldwide.
(www.glunzbavarianhaus.com/glunz-bavarian-chicago.html)
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 Hull House, a Chicago
social services organization for immigrants and the poor, was
founded by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams. It closed in
2012 after running out of money.
(AP, 1/27/12)
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)
1892 Chicago businessman
Charles Tyson Yerkes gave $300,000 to fund the wolrd’s largest
telescope. A crater on the moon was later named after him.
(Econ, 12/20/14, p.74)
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 of
Natural History opened in Chicago. It was founded during the World’s
Columbian Exposition and named after department store magnate
Marshall Field.
(WSJ, 8/30/04, p.A1)(SFC, 7/6/13, p.A10)
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 Charlie Wacker, director
of the World's Columbian Exposition and a friend of Louis Glunz, was
instrumental in making Louis a bottler of Schlitz beer for the
Chicago Exposition.
(www.glunzbavarianhaus.com/glunz-bavarian-chicago.html)
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 Farida Mazar Spyropoulos,
also performing under the stage name Fatima, appeared as Little
Egypt” at the "Street in Cairo" exhibition on the Midway at the
World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_%28dancer%29)
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/)
1900 Chicago reversed the water
flow of the Chicago River so that it would flow in from Lake
Michigan and carry pollution out to drain into the Mississippi.
(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.C12)(Econ, 11/19/11, p.43)
1900 Paul P. Harris met
attorney Bob Frank for dinner in a well-off neighborhood on the
North Side of Chicago. They took a walk around the area and stopped
at shops along the way. Harris was impressed by how Frank had made
friends with many of the shopkeepers. Eventually, Harris persuaded
other local businessmen to meet and discuss forming a club for
commercial trade, community, and fellowship. His vision laid the
foundation for the Rotary of today.
(www.rotary.org/en/AboutUs/History/paulharris/Pages/ridefault.aspx)
1900 Charles Comiskey, manager
of the National League’s Cincinnati Reds, bought the Western
League’s St. Paul team and moved it to Chicago as the White
Stockings.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
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 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft
Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901
baseball season as a major league and would not renew its membership
in the National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore
and Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The
league would also invade 4 cities where National League teams
existed: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter
teams included: the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago
White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers,
Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09,
p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
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.
Montague M. Bear, an engraver and member of the Rotary Club of
Chicago, sketched a wagon wheel with 13 spokes. When fellow club
members began to complain that the design was static and lifeless,
Bear added flourishes that made the wheel appear to ride on a bed of
clouds. Unfortunately, some members felt the clouds looked like
dust, defying the laws of gravity by being kicked up on both sides
of the wheel. The service club did not admit women until the
1980s.
(http://tinyurl.com/28kd23m)(AP, 2/23/98)(SFC,
9/28/99, p.A27)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.70)
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)
1905 Burrows, Marsh &
McLennan was formed by Henry W. Marsh and Donald R. McLennan
in Chicago becoming the world's largest insurance agency with annual
premiums of $3 million ($59 million consumer price index
adjusted). It was renamed Marsh & McLennan in 1906. In 1997, the
company merged with Johnson & Higgins.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_&_McLennan)
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)
1910 Dec 22, In Chicago, Ill.,
21 firefighters died when a wall collapsed at the Union Stock Yards
fire.
(www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-exchange-1910fire,0,4327692.story)
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 Sep 29, Walter Brookins
set an American record by flying 192 miles from Chicago to
Springfield, Ill., making two stops.
(NPub, 2002, p.8)
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 Mar 22, Karl Malden
(d.2009), later film and TV star, was born as Mladen Sekulovich in
Chicago.
(AP, 7/2/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A8)
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, The Chicago Cubs,
after merging with the Chicago Whales, began playing at Weeghman
Park. In 1926 the stadium became known as Wrigley Field.
(http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/nl/WrigleyField.htm)
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
(1865-1935), archeologist, founded the Oriental Institute as part of
the Univ. of Chicago. The collection was opened to the public in
1931.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Institute,_Chicago)(WSJ,
9/9/99, p.A25)(AM, 7/05, p.56)
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 Chicago Board of Trade
Clearing Corp. became the legal counter-party to buyers and sellers
of derivative contracts.
(Econ, 11/14/09, p.94)
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.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Hefner)
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 Apr, Blind Lemon Jefferson
recorded Match Box Blues in Chicago on Okey Records.
(http://tinyurl.com/kenpy7u)
1927 Jul 14, John William
Chancellor, news anchor (NBC, VOA), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1927 Sep 22, Gene Tunney
successfully defended his heavyweight boxing title against Jack
Dempsey in 10 rounds in the famous "long-count" fight in Chicago.
Referee Dave Barry stopped his count in the 7th round. Boxer Gene
Tunney was down; but Jack Dempsey, had not yet returned to his
corner. By the time the ref was able to resume counting, Tunney was
able to get to his feet. He got an extra 2 to 5 seconds....just what
he needed. Tunney won the fight and retained his world heavyweight
boxing championship.
(http://tinyurl.com/4uqu9o5)(AP, 9/22/97)
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)
1932 Sears opened its first
downtown Chicago store on State St. Some 15,000 customers visited on
opening day.
(SFC, 1/23/14, p.C3)
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 1, Italian Air Force
Gen. Italo Balbo led a flight of twenty-four flying boats on a
round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago,
Illinois. The flight had seven legs and ended on Lake Michigan near
Burnham Park on Aug 12. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a
column from Ostia to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along
the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo)
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)
1933 Economists from the Univ.
of Chicago sent Pres. Roosevelt a memo outlining a plan to split the
two main functions of banks: taking deposits and making loans. This
came to be known as the Chicago Plan. Roosevelt opted instead for
deposit insurance.
(Econ, 6/7/14, p.82)
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 Jan 19, The first pair of
Jockey briefs showed up in a Marshall Field’s window in Chicago.
(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.N6)
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 28, The Quiz Kids
began airing on US NBC radio from Chicago. It was created by Chicago
public relations and advertising man Louis G. Cowan, and originally
sponsored by Alka-Seltzer. In 1945 it began airing on NBC TV. Ruth
Duskin Feldman (1934-2015) joined the program at age 7 and left the
program soon after turning 16. In 1982 she authored “Whatever
Happened to the Quiz Kids: Perils and profits of Growing Up Gifted.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_Kids)(SFC,
6/11/15, p.D6)
1940 Jun 30, "Brenda Starr," a
cartoon strip by Dale Messick, a woman, appeared in a Chicago
Tribune insert. In Dec, 2010, Tribune Media Services announced that
it was ending the feature’s newspaper syndication.
(SFC, 12/10/10,
p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Starr_%28comic_strip%29)
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 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)
1944 Nov, An Int'l. Civil
Aviation Conference established English as the air traffic control
language. The Chicago Convention on air travel attempted to lay down
technical and legal rules for the post-war order in int’l. air
transport.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A25)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.66)(Econ,
7/9/11, p.69)
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 Sep 1, The SF 49ers under
coach Lawrence “Buck” Shaw, played their first home game at Kezar
Stadium before a crowd of 45,000. They beat the Chicago Rockets
34-14.
(SSFC, 1/22/12,
p.A2)(www.49ers.com/team/history/founder.html)
1946 Nov 12, 1st "autobank"
(banking by car) opened (Chicago).
(MC, 11/12/01)
1946 Muddy Waters began working
regularly at clubs in Chicago playing an amplified electric guitar
and local strudios began recording his songs.
(ON, 8/20/11, p.6)
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.
Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (1900-1974), the governor of Maryland
(1951-1959), gave the nominating speech.
(AP, 7/11/97)(Econ, 10/10/09,
p.23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_McKeldin)
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 teenager 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. Till’s beaten body was found three
days later. His left eye and an ear were missing, as were most of
his teeth. His nose was rushed and there was a hole in his right
temple. 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)(SFC, 7/25/13, p.A20)
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 Mar 18, The publisher of
Big Table Magazine deposited at the Chicago Post Office several
hundred copies of its first issue of Big Table Magazine. The
contents consisted of a novel by Jack Kerouac, "Old Angel Midnight,"
two poems by Edward Dahlberg, "Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch" by
William S. Burroughs and three poems by Gregory Corso. The Post
Office General Counsel later alleged that the first and third
articles were obscene and filthy. The magazine was published by
Roland Pitschel (1942-2009) and his sister.
(Fremontia, 7/09,
p.24)(www.usps.com/judicial/1959deci/1-150d.htm)
1959 Dec 16, In Chicago the
“Second City” improvisational theater was founded.
(Fremontia, 7/09, p.24)
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 The Univ. of Chicago’s
business school launched its Center for Research in Security Prices
following a donation by banker Louis Engel.
(Econ, 11/20/10, p.90)
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 1, TWA Flight 529, a
Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, crashed shortly after
takeoff from Midway Airport in Chicago, killing all 73 passengers
and 5 crew on board; it was at the time the deadliest single plane
disaster in US history.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_529)
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 In Chicago the DuSable
Museum of African American History was founded by Margaret
Burroughs.
(Econ, 9/12/15, p.31)
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 Mar, The Chicago
Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130 began dumping containers of
green dye into the Chicago River to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
(SSFC, 3/16/14, p.A17)
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)
1965 Eugene Fama (b.1939),
American economist, first proposed his efficient market hypothesis
at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as an academic
concept of study through his published Ph.D. thesis.
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.67)(www.e-m-h.org/history.html)
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)
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, the world's tallest building (443 m), topped out. Sears soon
moved its headquarters to the Sears Tower. The building was designed
by Bruce Graham (d.2010 at 84) of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In
2009 the name of the structure was changed to Willis Tower as Willis
Group Holdings, a London-based insurance broker, consolidated its
area offices in the building.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)(SFC, 3/9/10,
p.C4)(http://tinyurl.com/dhd3y6)
1973 Sep, The American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was formed in Chicago as a forum
to push states to adopt conservative laws.
(www.alec.org/about-alec/history/)(Econ, 8/17/13,
p.32)
1973 ShoreBank, a Chicago-based
lender, was founded. It set out to prove that money could be lent
profitably to poor people in poor neighborhoods in what came to be
known as community development finance. In 2010 it was taken over by
the FDIC despite efforts to rescue it by Citigroup, JPMorganChase,
Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.62)
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 Oct, William George Bundy
(b.1957), construction worker, disappeared in Cook County, Ill.
Bones of 33 men and boys were found in late 1978 under the home of
John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994). In 2011 authorities identified Bundy’s
bones among those found under Gacy’s Chicago house.
(SFC, 11/30/11,
p.A12)(http://tinyurl.com/7s5utyc)
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, Democrat Jane M.
Byrne (1934-2014) was elected as the 1st woman mayor of Chicago,
defeating Republican Wallace D. Johnson. She continued in office to
1983 when she lost to state Sen. Harold Washington.
(AP, 4/3/97)(SSFC, 11/16/14, p.C8)
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 11, Chicago mobsters
Arthur "The Brain" Rachel and Joseph "The Monk" Scalise staged a
daring daytime theft of the Marlborough Diamond. Both men were
convicted in Britain of threatening to use a hand grenade while
robbing London's posh Graff Jewelers of $3.6 million worth of goods,
including the diamond. They began serving 15-year prison terms in
1984 and were released in 1993.
(AP,
6/7/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Scalise)
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 for studies
of industrial structures and the causes and effects of public
regulation. Stigler had studied the process by which people acquired
information.
(Econ, 11/25/06, p.80)(AP, 10/11/09)(Econ,
10/16/10, p.92)
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. He went on to serve 6
terms. His father, Richard Daly, had served 6 terms as mayor
(1955-1976).
(AP, 4/24/99)(Econ, 9/11/10, p.40)
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 22, British PM Tony
Blair, speaking before the Chicago Economic Club, unveiled his
"Doctrine of the International Community" (Chicago Doctrine). Among
other things, the doctrine outlines circumstances that warrant the
international community to intervene in the affairs of other
nations.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html)
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)
2000 Chicago’s City Hall went
green with 20,000 square feet of vegetation planted on its roof 11
stories above LaSalle Avenue.
(Econ, 9/3/11, p.29)
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 Steven Levitt, economics
professor at the Univ. of Chicago, and Stephen Dubner authored
“Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of
Everything.”
(Econ, 1/19/08, p.86)(Econ, 8/15/09, p.68)
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 Jun 22, In Florida FBI
agents arrested 7 people in the Liberty City area of Miami in
connection with a nascent plot to attack the Sears Tower and federal
buildings in south Florida. Narseal Batiste (32), the alleged
ringleader, called the group “Seas of David.” In 2009 five Miami men
were convicted of plotting to start an anti-government insurrection
by destroying Chicago's Sears Tower and bombing FBI offices. One man
was acquitted.
(SFC, 6/23/06, p.A10)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.26)(AP,
5/12/09)
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 The installation of Cloud
Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor,
was completed as the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium
Park in the Loop community area of Chicago. The sculpture was
nicknamed The Bean because of its shape.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate)
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.
The buyout was completed in December and saddled the firm with $8
billion in new debt. In 2008 the Tribune slid into bankruptcy.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C1)(Econ, 3/23/13, p.36)
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, Julian King
(7), was missing. His body 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. On May 11,
2012, Balfour was convicted of the 3 murders and faced mandatory
life in prison.
(SFC, 10/25/08, p.A5)(AP, 10/27/08)(AP,
12/2/08)(SFC, 4/9/12, p.A6)(SFC, 5/12/12, p.A6)
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)
2008 IXPI (Intellectual
Property Exchange Int’l.) was set up by Ocean Tomo, a Chicago-based
merchant bank set up in 2003 that specializes in intellectual
property. The IXPI financial exchange would let companies buy, sell
and hedge patent rights. It planned to debut in 2012.
(Econ, 5/12/12, p.72)(http://www.oceantomo.com/)
2009 Jan 9, Chicago-based
Merisant Worldwide Inc., maker of the artificial sweetener Equal,
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hobbled by the global
credit crisis and sliding sales.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.77)(http://tinyurl.com/ykx7ghs)
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)
2009 May 13, Chicago became the
first US city to adopt a ban on the sale of baby bottles and sippy
cups containing the chemical BPA.
(AP, 5/13/09)
2009 Jul 16, In Chicago Willis
Tower was introduced to Chicago by Mayor Richard M. Daley and others
during a public Sears Tower renaming ceremony hosted by Willis Group
Holdings. The London-based insurance brokerage secured the naming
rights as part an agreement to lease 140,000 square feet of space,
and has said it plans to bring hundreds of jobs to the city.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Aug 27, Chicago's 9-story
old main post office, which dated from the 1920s and has been vacant
for more than a decade, was sold at auction for $40 million to
International Property Developers North America Inc, which did not
specify its plans.
(AP, 8/28/09)
2009 Sep 12, Christopher Kelly
(51), former chief fundraiser for ousted Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich, died in Chicago after being found slumped over in his
car the previous evening. An overdose of drugs was suspected. Kelly
faced at least 8 years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud
charges in 2 separate cases.
(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Sep 18, In Chicago 4
former members of a now-disbanded police unit admitted that they
used to barge into people’s homes and steal money. They were
sentenced to 6 months in jail and promised to cooperate in an
ongoing investigation.
(SFC, 9/19/09, p.A6)
2009 Sep 24, In Chicago Derrion
Albert (16), a sophomore at Christian Fenger Academy High School,
was beaten to death as 2 groups of students from different
neighborhoods engaged in a fight following a shooting earlier in the
day. 4 teenagers were charged with murder. The melee was caught on
video. On Dec 8, 2010, a 15-year-old boy was convicted of
first-degree murder. 4 suspects were still awaiting trial. In 2011
the last of 5 convicted suspects was sentenced to 32 years in
prison.
(SFC, 9/29/09,
p.A7)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSH2CafhcX4)(AP, 12/9/10)(SFC,
8/30/11, p.A6)
2009 Oct 2, In Denmark the IOC
opened a meeting hearing the cases led by government leaders and
kings to win the right to stage the 2016 Olympic Games. US Pres.
Obama spoke for Chicago, Japan's new PM Yukio Hatoyama spoke for
Tokyo, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva spoke for Rio de
Janeiro, and Spain's King Juan Carlos and PM Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero spoke for Spain. Brazil won the bid.
(AFP, 10/2/09)(AP, 10/3/09)
2009 Oct 2, Michael David
Barrett (48), accused of taping surreptitious nude videos of ESPN
reporter Erin Andrews, was arrested at O’Hare Airport as he arrived
on a flight from Buffalo, NY. He faced federal charges of interstate
stalking for taking the videos, trying to sell them to celebrity Web
site TMZ and posting the videos online. On March 15, 2010, Barrett
was sentenced to 2½ years in prison.
(AP, 10/3/09)(SFC, 3/16/10, p.A5)
2009 Oct 3, David Headley
(b.1960 as Daood Sayed Gilani), a US citizen of Pakistani descent,
was arrested in Chicago. He was suspected of doing reconnaissance
for the Nov 26, 2008, Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.
(SSFC, 1/3/10,
p.D3)(www.talkleft.com/story/2009/12/7/125726/611)
2010 Jan 14, The Doomsday
Clock, set up in 1947, was set back 1 minute for the first time in
its 63-year history. In moving the clock from 5 minutes before
midnight to 6 minutes before midnight, scientists expressed optimism
for humanity's future. The actual clock is housed at the Bulletin of
Atomic Sciences (BAS) office in Chicago, Ill.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/doomsdaydeferredendofworldclocksetback1minute)
2010 Feb 14, An apartment fire
in Cicero, Ill., killed at least 7 people including 4 children. The
fire spread to nearby buildings and over 20 people were left
homeless. On March 4 landlord Lawrence Myers (60) and handyman
Marion Comier (47) were each charged with seven counts of
first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated arson.
(SFC, 2/15/10,
p.A9)(www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2085374,CST-NWS-fire05.article)
2010 Mar 18, David Coleman
Headley (b.1960), Chicago-based Pakistani American, pleaded guilty
to 12 counts of terrorism for his role as a scout for the 2008
coordinated assault in Mumbai that left 173 people dead.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Headley)(SFC,
3/19/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 14, In Chicago James
Larry (32) shot and killed his pregnant wife, infant son and 2
nieces in their home.
(SFC, 4/17/10, p.A4)
2010 May 24, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a group of African Americans may sue the city of
Chicago for discriminatory use of an application test that kept them
from being hired as firefighters.
(SFC, 5/25/10, p.A4)
2010 Jun 9, The Chicago
Blackhawks ended 49 years of Stanley Cup frustration with a 4-3
overtime victory over the Philadelphia Flyers that clinched the
National Hockey League's best-of-seven championship series.
(Reuters, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 28, Chicago’s former
police Cmdr. Jon Burge (b.1947) was convicted of lying about the
torture of suspects and was sentenced to 4½ years in prison. In 2012
the City Council approved settlements totaling $7.17 million to
resolved lawsuits by 2 men who alleged they were victims of police
torture during the tenure of Burge.
(SFC, 7/24/12,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge)
2010 Jun 28, The Supreme Court
held that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense
anywhere they live. The court, in the case of McDonald v. City of
Chicago, forever changed the terms of debate over the right to bear
arms. The 5-4 vote extended principles the court laid out in 2008,
when it struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C.
(AP,
6/29/10)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100628/pl_ynews/ynews_pl2876)
2010 Jul 2, The Chicago City
Council approved what city officials said is the strictest handgun
ordnance in the US.
(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 20, US regulators shut
down 8 more banks including 4 in California, one in Chicago, one in
Virginia and two in Florida. This brought the total number of failed
US banks to 118 for the year thus far.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.D2)
2010 Sep 19, In Chicago Sami
Samir Hassoun, a Lebanese immigrant and candy-store worker, shortly
after midnight placed a backpack he believed contained a bomb near
the Chicago Bulls baseball stadium. It was part of an FBI sting. In
2013 Hassoun (25) was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/lkj6aqq)(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A6)
2010 Oct 3, Rohm Emanuel,
former US White House chief of staff, said in a video on his website
that he’s preparing to run for mayor of Chicago.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A6)
2010 Dec 16, US authorities
said 7 people have been arrested following the seizure of nearly 11
tons of marijuana, valued at $22 million, packed into railroad cars
from Mexico and destined to Chicago.
(SFC, 12/17/10, p.A13)
2010 Dec 22, In Chicago 2
firefighters were killed when a roof collapsed in a vacant burning
building. The tragedy took place exactly 100 years following the
Chicago Union Stock Yards fire that killed 21 firemen.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A7)
2011 Feb 2, A massive storm
billed as the worst in decades barreled toward the northeast,
leaving vast swaths from Chicago to New York paralyzed by snow and
ice.
(AP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 22, Rahm Emanuel,
former White House Chief of Staff from Pres. Obama, was elected
mayor of Chicago, overwhelming five rivals.
(SFC, 2/23/11, p.A4)
2011 Mar 30, In Chicago final
demolition began for the Cabrini Green public high-rises. The
complex, dating back to the 1940s, at its peak housed 13,000 people
in 23 high-rises.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A8)
2011 May 16, Rahm Emanuel
(b.1959) took office as Chicago’s 55th mayor. He cut $75 million
form the city’s bloated budget on his first day.
(Econ, 8/20/11,
p.30)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel)
2011 Jun 4, The Chicago
Assyrian Dictionary project, begun 1921, was reported complete. It
comprised 21 volumes of Akkadian, a Semitic language (with several
dialects, including Assyrian) that endured for 2,500 years.
(AP, 6/4/11)
2011 Jun 9, In a federal court
in Chicago, a jury found Pakistani-born Chicago businessman Tahawwur
Rana guilty of plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that had
printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad; but they failed to convict
him of providing material support to the militant group that planned
the deadly attack on Mumbai, India, which killed 166 people.
(AP, 6/9/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Chicago,
Illinois, a 26-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe was unveiled on
the city’s magnificent Mile. Sculptor Seward Johnson used her famous
pose from the film “The Seven Year Itch,” where a draft catches her
dress as she passes over a subway gate.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A8)
2011 Aug 24, Philip Baker (46),
former managing director of the collapsed Chicago hedge fund Lake
Shore Asset Management Ltd, pleaded guilty for his role in what
prosecutors called a $291.8 million worldwide fraud. The Commodity
Futures Trading Commission won a court order in August 2007 freezing
Lake Shore's assets and a receiver was appointed that October. More
than $100 million has been returned to investors so far.
(Reuters, 8/24/11)
2011 Oct 23, Anti-Wall Street
demonstrators of the Occupy Chicago movement stood their ground in a
downtown park in noisy but peaceful defiance of police orders to
clear out, prompting 130 arrests.
(AP, 10/23/11)
2011 Dec 8, Researchers at the
Univ. of Chicago reported experiments demonstrating that a rat would
free a fellow rat trapped in a restrictive cage even without a
payoff, indicating empathy and selfless behavior.
(SFC, 12/9/11, p.A16)
2012 Jan 10, The Chicago-based
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it has moved its
"Doomsday Clock" one minute ahead to five minutes to midnight.
(AP, 1/10/12)(SFC, 1/11/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 11, Chicago gang
leader Augustin Zambrano was sentenced to 60 years in federal
prison.
(SFC, 1/12/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 18, In Chicago 7 teens
were charged in the beating and robbery of a 17-year-old high school
student in an incident that stemmed from a previous altercation last
October. A video of the beating went viral online. Viewers who
posted comments identified the alleged attackers by name.
(AP, 1/18/12)
2012 Jan 27, Hull House, the
Chicago social services organization founded in 1889 by the Nobel
Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, closed after running out of money.
(AP, 1/27/12)
2012 Mar 14, Chicago-based
Encyclopedia Britannica said it is shelving its print edition after
244 years in favor of it Web-based version.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.A6)
2012 May 13, In Chicago 4
mothers were pronounced dead this morning after their speeding car
hit a support beam of an elevated train track around midnight,
crashing with enough force for the vehicle to split in two.
(AP, 5/14/12)
2012 May 20, Pres. Obama hosted
a summit with NATO allies in Chicago. They charted an outwardly
confident path to a postwar Afghanistan. Nearly 50 US military
veterans at an anti-NATO rally in Chicago threw their service medals
into the street, an action they said symbolized their rejection of
the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(SFC, 5/21/12, p.A4)(Reuters, 5/21/12)
2012 Jun 27, The Chicago City
Council voted to decriminalize marijuana possession. From August 4
police can issue tickets of $250-$500 for someone caught with 15
grams or less of pot. The new law could generated millions of
dollars for the city.
(SFC, 6/28/12, p.A7)
2012 Jul 5, Steve Cannon (46)
of Des Moines, Iowa, completed a 40-day, 1,037-mile run around Lake
Michigan. He started and ended his trek at Caray’s Tavern in
Chicago.
(SFC, 7/7/12, p.A5)
2012 Jul 20, Chicago lottery
winner Urooj Khan (46) died weeks after winning a $1 million jackpot
from the Illinois Lottery. Authorities later said he died from
cyanide poisoning and in 2013 began exhumation proceedings.
(SFC, 1/11/13, p.A6)
2012 Sep 10, Chicago teachers
went on strike for the first time in 25 years after their union and
district officials failed to reach a contract agreement despite
intense weekend negotiations that the union said were productive but
still failed to adequately address issues such as job security and
teacher evaluations.
(AP, 9/10/12)
2012 Sep 14, Undercover FBI
agents arrested Adel Daoud (18) for trying to detonate what he
believed was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar. An
undercover operation in which an agent pretending to be a terrorist
had provided him with a phony car bomb and watched him press the
trigger. Prosecutors the next day said Daoud was offered several
chances to change his mind and walk away from the plot.
(AP, 9/15/12)
2012 Sep 18, The Chicago
Teachers Union’s House of Delegates decided to end their strike, the
city’s first in the last 25 years.
(SFC, 9/19/12, p.A6)
2012 Oct 3, Chicago police
began top chop down some 1,500 marijuana plants discovered a day
earlier on the city’s far South Side.
(SFC, 10/5/12, p.A10)
2012 Dec 25, Chicago mobster
Frank Calabrese Sr. (75) died at a federal prison in North Carolina.
He was among 5 men convicted in September 2007 at the Family Secrets
trial.
(SFC, 12/27/12, p.A13)
2012 Dec 26, The Chicago
Teachers Union sued the nation's third largest school district,
saying Mayor Rahm Emanuel's campaign to reform or close
underperforming public schools discriminates against
African-American teachers and staff.
(Reuters, 12/27/12)
2013 Jan 17, Chicago
businessman Tahawwur Rana was sentenced to 14 years in prison for
providing material support to overseas terrorism.
(SFC, 1/17/13, p.A10)
2013 Jan 27, In Chicago 7
people were killed and 6 wounded in gun violence around the city.
(SFC, 1/28/13, p.A5)
2013 Jan 29, In Chicago Hadiya
Pendleton (15) was gunned down in a park. The majorette had recently
performed with her King Prep High School band in Washington for
Pres. Obama’s inauguration. On Feb 11 gang members Michael Ward (18)
and Kenneth Williams (20) were charged with her murder.
(SFC, 2/1/13, p.A8)(SFC, 2/12/13, p.A4)
2013 Feb 14, The Chicago Crime
Commission name Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of Mexico’s
Sinaloa drug cartel, as the city’s new Public Enemy No. 1, for
supplying most of the narcotics sold in the city.
(SFC, 2/15/13, p.A6)
2013 Mar 21, Chicago said it
will close 54 schools and 61 school buildings by the beginning of
the next academic year in the country's third-largest public school
district. Education experts called this the largest mass closing in
the nation.
(Reuters, 3/21/13)
2013 Mar 21, In Chicago 7
people were shot and wounded early today at a party at a nightclub
in an incident that police said may have been gang related.
(Reuters, 3/21/13)
2013 Apr 15, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prize was awarded to six activists for their efforts
to protect the world ecosystem. They included Nohra Padilla (50) of
Colombia, who began organizing waste pickers in Bogota in 1990 into
the Bogota Recyclers’ Assoc.; Rossano Ercolini (57) of Italy for
setting up a trash collection and conservation system; Kimberly
Wasserman (36) of Chicago her grassroots campaign to close polluting
coal-fired power plants; Aleta Baun (50) of Indonesia for organizing
villages on west Timor against mining companies clearing forests for
marble; Azzam Alwash (54) of Iraq for his efforts to restore
Mesopotamian marshland; Jonathan Deal of South Africa for his
efforts against hydraulic fracturing in Karoo.
(SFC, 4/15/13, p.A10)
2013 May 22, Chicago officials
closed 49 schools that they said were not being fully used.
(SFC, 5/23/13, p.A10)
2013 May 29, Rev. Andrew
Greeley (b.1928), Chicago newspaper columnist and novelist, died in
Chicago. His work included over 100 non-fiction books and some 50
novels, which included a series of about a bishop-detective, Blackie
Ryan.
(SFC, 5/31/13, p.D7)(Econ, 6/8/13, p.94)
2013 May 30, In Chicago a
federal judge sentenced Sami Samir Hassoun, (25), Lebanese immigrant
and candy-store worker, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for
placing a backpack he believed contained a bomb near the Chicago
Bulls baseball stadium. The case stemmed from a sting operation in
Sep 2010.
(SFC, 5/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Jun 7, Ata Yousef El
Ammouri (65), a former Chicago store owner, was taken into custody
after arriving from Jordan. He had fled the US in 1979 after being
accused of killing Joe Harris, who walked out of his store without
paying for a can of beer.
(SSFC, 6/9/13, p.A12)
2013 Sep 19, In Chicago gunmen
used an assault-style weapon to spray a crowd watching a basketball
game at Cornell Square Park. 13 people were wounded including a boy
(3). Four Blackstones gang members, who had sought revenge against
the rival Gangster Disciples, were later arrested.
(SFC, 9/21/13, p.A5)(SFC, 9/25/13, p.A8)
2013 Nov 27, Two Chicago women
became the first same-sex couple to marry in Illinois after a
federal judge granted an expedited marriage license because of one
of the women’s failing health.
(SFC, 11/28/13, p.A6)
2014 Jan 14, A Chicago federal
court sentenced H. Ty Warner (69), the billionaire businessman
behind Beanie Babies, to two years probation for not paying taxes on
$25 million he had hidden.
(SFC, 1/15/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 15, The Archdiocese of
Chicago released 6,000 pages of documents as part of a settlement
with sex abuse victims.
(SFC, 1/16/14, p.A6)
2014 Jan 22, Sears said it will
close its downtown Chicago store at 2 N. State St., which opened in
2001, this coming April.
(SFC, 1/23/14, p.C3)
2014 Jan, Chicago endured a
cold snap. Temperatures fell to -27°C, the lowest since 1884.
(Econ, 2/22/14, p.68)
2014 Feb 18, In Chicago an
elderly nun who broke into what was supposed to be one of the most
carefully guarded nuclear facilities in the US was sentenced to 35
months in prison. Sister Megan Rice (84) cut through fences and
several layers of security at the Y-12 National Security Complex in
Tennessee along with two other members of Transform Now Plowshares
-- a pacifist group -- in July 2012. Fellow anti-nuclear activists
Michael Walli (64) and Greg Boertje-Obed (58) were sentenced to five
years and two months in prison because of their criminal histories.
(AFP, 2/19/14)
2014 Mar 10, A federal judge in
Chicago ruled that Branko Bogdanov (58) and his wife Lela (52) are
to remain in jail pending trial for stealing $7 million in a
decade-long multistate shopping spree. They had emigrated from
Yugoslavia and were in the US illegally.
(SFC, 3/11/14, p.A7)
2014 Apr 29, Laws in Chicago
and NYC went into effect subjecting electronic cigarettes to the
same regulations as tobacco.
(SFC, 4/30/14, p.A6)
2014 Jun 24, Filmmaker George
Lucas said he has selected Chicago instead of San Francisco to build
his museum of American art and Hollywood memorabilia. Chicago
offered a $1-a-year lease for the site.
(SFC, 6/25/14, p.A1)
2014 Jul 18, Chicago-based
Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie agreed to buy Shire, a European rival,
for around $54 billion. This will allow AbbVie to relocate to
Britain for tax purposes.
(SFC, 7/19/14, p.D1)
2014 Jul 31, In Chicago Anthony
DeFrances (60), a senior executive upset about a job demotion,
gravely wounded ArrowStream CEO Steven LaVoie in a downtown office
building and then fatally shot himself.
(Reuters, 7/31/14)
2014 Sep 26, In Illinois Brian
Howard (36), an FAA contract employee, set fire at the Aurora air
traffic control center bringing Chicago’s Midway and O’Hare airports
to a halt with over 2,000 flights cancelled. On May 28, 2015, Howard
pleaded guilty to setting the fire during a failed suicide attempt.
(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A7)(SFC, 9/29/14, p.A6)(SFC,
5/29/15, p.A9)
2014 Oct 20, Chicago police
shot and killed Laquan McDonald (16) as he reportedly burglarized
cars. Officer Jason Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times. Police
reportedly deleted 86 minutes of video from a Burger King in the
area. His death was also captured on dashcam video. McDonald’s
family later received a $5 million settlement from the city. The
video was made public in 2015.
(SFC, 11/27/15, p.A10)(SSFC, 11/29/15, p.A12)
2014 Nov 6, The Archdiocese of
Chicago released files on three dozen more abusive clergy members to
fulfill Cardinal Francis George’s pledge to do so before he retires.
(SFC, 11/7/14, p.A6)
2014 Nov 14, Jane M. Byrne
(b.1934), Chicago’s 1st woman mayor (1979-1983), died. In 1994 she
authored “My Chicago.”
(SSFC, 11/16/14, p.C8)
2014 Nov 24, A US judge in
Chicago sentenced Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez (59), a reputed
lieutenant of captured Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman,
to 22 years in prison.
(AP, 11/24/14)
2015 Jan 27, A federal judge in
Chicago sentenced twin brothers Pedro and Margarito Flores (35) to
14 years in prison each for running a nearly $2 billion North
American drug ring. Their sentences were reduced as a reward for
their cooperation against Joaquin Guzman and other cartel leaders.
(SFC, 1/28/15, p.A10)
2015 Feb 2, A winter storm led
to flight cancellations in the Northeast US. The same storm had
dumped a foot and a half of snow on Chicago, Detroit and other areas
of the Plains and Midwest..
(SFC, 2/3/15, p.A6)
2015 Feb 17, In Chicago a civil
suit was filed against Mohammad Abdullah Saleem (75), founder of the
Institute of Islamic Education, accusing him of abusing an employee
and three teenage students. The suit accused Saleem of abusing
female students as far back as the 1980s.
(SFC, 2/18/15, p.A7)
2015 Feb 19, Bone-chilling cold
in the US Midwest shattered records in Chicago, closing schools and
starting its trudge eastward to an already frozen Boston and New
York.
(Reuters, 2/19/15)
2015 Apr 7, In Chicago
incumbent Mayor Rohm Emanuel was re-elected with 56% of the vote.
Jesus Garcia took 44% in a 40% turnout.
(Econ., 4/11/15, p.29)
2015 Apr 14, Chicago’s Mayor
Rahm Emanuel announced a $5.5 million reparations package for
suspects (mostly black) who were tortured by police in the 1970s and
1980s.
(Econ., 4/25/15, p.28)
2015 May 6, The Chicago City
Council voted 42-0 to approve a $5.5 million reparations fund for
torture victims of the notorious police commander Jon Burge and his
so-called midnight crew of rogue detectives (1972-1991).
(SFC, 5/7/15, p.A10)
2015 May 28, A new report said
Illinois remains as the 3rd most corrupt US state after New York and
California. Chicago was reported as still the most corrupt US city.
(Econ, 6/6/15, p.22)
2015 Aug 7, An “unprecedented”
agreement between the Chicago Police Department and the American
Civil Liberties Union went into effect. It will allow independent
evaluations of the department’s controversial "stop and frisk"
program.
(CSM, 8/8/15)
2015 Oct 13, Barbara
Byrd-Bennett (66), the former head of Chicago Public Schools,
pleaded guilty to her role in a scheme to steer $23 million in
no-bid contracts to education firms for $2.3 million in bribes and
kickbacks.
(SFC, 10/14/15, p.A7)
2015 Nov 2, In Chicago Tyshawn
Lee (9) was found shot dead in an alley in a South Side
neighborhood. On Nov 27 gang member Corey Morgan (27) was charged
with first degree murder.
(SFC, 11/4/15, p.A4)(SFC, 11/28/15, p.A4)
2015 Nov 21, A heavy fall
snowstorm hit the Midwestern United States, blanketing states from
South Dakota to Wisconsin with as much as 16 inches (40 cm) of snow.
The storm affected air travel, with 514 US flights canceled by
morning, with Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway
International airports the hardest hit.
(Reuters, 11/22/15)
2015 Nov 22, More than 130
flights were cancelled in and out of Chicago’s O’hare Int’l. Airport
as a deep freeze set in across the Midwest.
(SFC, 11/23/15, p.A5)
2015 Nov 23, Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel called for calm ahead of the release of a "hideous" video
showing officer Jason Van Dyke fire 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald
(17). Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged the next day with first
degree murder.
(AFP, 11/24/15)
2015 Dec 1, Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy following the
public outcry over the handling of the Oct 20, 2014, shooting of
Laquan McDonald (17).
(SFC, 12/2/15, p.A8)