Timeline of Illinois
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315Mil BC In 2007 scientists dated
plant and insect specimens from a limestone cave in Illinois to about
this time.
(www.livescience.com/animals/070504_chicago_cave.html)
600-800 In 2003 evidence of an Indian village was
found at an Illinois site some 35 miles east of St. Louis, that dated
to the Late Woodland period.
(SFC, 4/21/03, p.A6)
c1000 The Cahokia Indian
settlement in Southern Illinois numbered about 30,000.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)
c1300 The Mississippian people,
the largest pre-Columbian culture north of Mexico, built the earthen
city of Cahokia about this time. The site, discovered in southwestern
Illinois, probably served as a religious center and may have had a
population of up to 80,000. The Mississippians arose around 800 AD and
remained a powerful influence until about the time of the first
European explorers. The loose-knit theocracy held sway over much of
present-day Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,
Missouri, Ohio and, not surprisingly, Mississippi. They also had
settlements extending sporadically into the upper Midwest and across
the western plains. The largest of the earthen mounds at Cahokia,
called Monks Mound, is 700 feet wide, 100 feet tall and 1000 feet
long--representing a colossal public works program and a government
stable enough to order the construction.
(HNQ, 1/29/01)
1675 May 18, Jacques Marquette
(37), Jesuit, missionary in Chicago, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1779 Feb 25, The British
surrendered the Illinois country to George Rogers Clark at Vincennes.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1801 Jun 1, Mormon leader Brigham
Young was born in Whitingham, Vt.
(AP, 6/1/97)
1809 Feb 3, US Congress passed an
act establishing the Illinois Territory.
(AP, 2/3/97)
1810 Mar 6, Illinois passed the
1st state vaccination legislation in US.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1818 Dec 3, Illinois was admitted
as the 21st state.
(AP, 12/3/97)(HN, 12/3/98)
1828 McKendree University, a
private liberal arts college, was founded in Illinois.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKendree_University)
1831-1837 Abraham Lincoln lived in New Salem. During
this time he enlisted in the Black Hawk War.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)
1832 Apr 21, Abraham Lincoln (23)
assembled with his New Salem neighbors for the Black Hawk War on the
Western frontier. Illinois Governor John Reynolds had called for
volunteers to beat back a new Indian threat. Black Hawk, chief of the
Sac and Fox Indians, had returned to his homeland at the head of a band
of 450 warriors, intent on forcibly reversing the treaty he had signed
28 years earlier that ceded control of the tribe’s ancestral home in
northwestern Illinois to the U.S. government.
(HNQ, 7/21/00)
1832 Aug 2, Some 1,300 Illinois
militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men, women
and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in
Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three weeks later,
bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
(HN, 8/2/98)(MC, 8/2/02)
1832 Abraham Lincoln ran for the
General Assembly of Illinois and lost.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)
1834 Abraham Lincoln ran for the
General Assembly of Illinois and won.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)
1835 Aug 25, Ann Rutledge (22),
said to be Lincoln's true love, died in Ill.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1837 May 27, Legendary gunfighter
James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok was born in Troy Grove, IL. As a youth,
Hickok helped his father operate an Underground Railroad stop for
runaway slaves and during the Civil War became a daring Union scout.
After the war Hickok's fame as a skilled marksman, Indian fighter and
frontier marshal grew, leading to a stint as a featured attraction with
Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. On August 2, 1876, Hickok was shot
from behind and killed while playing poker in Saloon No. 10 in
Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Contrary to his custom, Hickok was sitting
with his back to the door.
(HNPD, 5/28/99)(MesWP)
1837 Nov 7, A mob attack on the
Alton, Illinois, office newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy and the
subsequent killing of Lovejoy was inspired by the editor’s anti-slavery
writings. Several persons were indicted in the killing, but they were
found not guilty. Lovejoy was killed while defending a newly arrived
printing press. People opposed to Lovejoy‘s mission had already
destroyed three previous presses.
(HNQ, 3/18/99)(HNQ, 6/26/00)
1839 Joseph Smith escaped from a
Missouri prison and the Mormons left Far West, Mo., and started buying
land for a new settlement in Nauvoo, Ill. [see1844]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(NW, 9/10/01, p.48)
1840 May 10, Mormon leader Joseph
Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities
they experienced in Missouri.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1841-1846 The Mormon Temple at Nauvoo was built.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)
1842 Sep 2, A letter by Abraham
Lincoln (31) in the Sangamon Journal satirized the Illinois State
Auditor’s call for state taxes to be paid in silver or gold. This in
part led auditor James Shields to challenge Lincoln to a duel.
(ON, 11/02, p.11)
1842 Nov 4, Abraham Lincoln
married Mary Todd in Springfield, Ill.
(AP, 11/4/97) (HN, 11/4/98)
1843-1853 Abraham Lincoln worked at a law office
first with Stephen T. Logan and later with William H. Herndon at Sixth
and Adams in Springfield.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)
1844 Jun 27, Mormon Joseph Smith
(38) and his brother, Hyram, were again imprisoned. A mob stormed the
Carthage, Ill. prison and the brothers were killed. [see 1846] James
Strang laid claim to being his rightful successor but Brigham Young
soon took control of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Strang then began evangelizing in the Midwest and East with some
success. His followers were later called "Strangites."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(AP,
6/27/97)
1844 Aug 8, Brigham Young was
chosen to head the Mormon church following the killing of Joseph Smith
in Illinois.
(AP, 8/8/97)(HN, 8/8/98)
1844 The Lincolns purchased a 1
1/2 story Greek Revival home at Eighth and Jackson in Springfield. Mary
and Abraham Lincoln paid $1,200 in cash and land for the
one-and-half-story, five-room, wood-clapboard structure. It was the
only home the Lincolns ever owned. They spent the next 16 years
enlarging and improving it.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)(HNQ, 5/6/01)
1845 An account of the murder of
Joseph Smith, Mormon leader, was published at Nauvoo, Ill., by an
eye-witness named William M. Daniels.
(LSA., Fall 1995, p.18)
1846 Feb 4, Brigham Young, Joseph
Smith’s successor, led the Mormons overland from Nauvoo, Ill., to the
Great Salt Lake Valley. Mormon pioneer Sam Brannon gathered some 250
Mormons aboard the ship, Brooklyn, and sailed from New York to San
Francisco. [see 1847]
(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)
1846 Feb 10, Members of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus to
the west from Illinois.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1846 May 1, The new Mormon Temple
in Nauvoo was dedicated.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)
1847 The Mormon Temple in Nauvoo
burned to the ground. The fire was reportedly set by a detractor. In
1999 plans were made to rebuild the temple.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)
1848 Mar 19, Wyatt Earp (Wyatt
Berry Stapp Earp), later U.S. Marshal, was born the son of a Sheriff in
Monmouth, Illinois. He fought at the Gunfight at the OK Corral and
Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote "And Die in the West," an account of
the incident.
(HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(CHA, 1/2001)
1851 Jan 28, Northwestern
University, near Chicago, was chartered.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1851 The Illinois Central Railroad
was formed.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A8)
1854 Oct 4, Abraham Lincoln made
his 1st political speech at Illinois State Fair.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1854 Oct 16, Abraham Lincoln
delivered a speech in Peoria, Ill., part of a series against
legislation proposed by Sen. Stephen Douglas that would allow settlers
to decide the status of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. In 2008 Lewis
E. Lehrman authored “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point.”
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W9)
1856 John Bennet, a wealthy
Illinois farmer, started a little town he named Judson. The town closed
down after a few years when nearby Grant, begun by Clinton C. Campbell,
was selected as a railroad depot. Grant was later renamed Grant Park.
(SFC, 7/15/03, p.A2)
1858 Jun 16, In a speech accepting
the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Springfield, Ill.,
Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be
resolved, declaring, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
(AP, 6/16/98)(HN, 6/16/98)
1858 Jul 24, During the Illinois
senatorial campaign Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln challenged
Democrat Steven Douglas to a series of joint debates, which covered the
slavery controversy and its impact on the nation. The debates
illuminated the positions of Lincoln and Douglas on slavery, which
Lincoln regarded as "a moral, a social and a political wrong," while
Douglas evaded the moral issue. Even though Lincoln narrowly won the
popular vote, Douglas prevailed in the state legislature 54-41 and thus
the election. The debates propelled Lincoln to national prominence.
(HNPD, 9/4/99)(AP, 7/24/08)
1858 Aug 21, The first of seven
debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen Douglas took place in Ottowa, Ill. Douglas went on to win the
Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the
first time. Douglas stated in the 1st debate: "I believe this
government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white
men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am
in favor of confining citizenship to white men."
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.W11)(HN, 8/21/00)(AP, 8/21/08)
1858 Aug 27, The 2nd of 7 of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial race of took
place in Freeport, Ill. Stephen Douglas formulated what became known as
the Freeport Doctrine, which stated that the people of a territory
could, by lawful means, exclude slavery prior to the formulation of a
state constitution. Douglas first pronounced it in response to a
question posed by Lincoln as to how Douglas could reconcile the
doctrine of "popular sovereignty" with the Dred Scott decision.
(HNQ, 6/4/99)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Sep 15, The third debate
between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas
was held in Jonesboro, Ill.
(AP, 9/15/08)
1858 Sep 18, Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas held the fourth of their senatorial debates, this
one in Charleston, Ill.
(AP, 9/18/08)
1858 Oct 7, Lincoln and Douglas
held their 5th debate in Galesburg, Ill., on the Knox College campus.
(SFEM, 10/29/00, p.8)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Oct 13, The sixth debate
between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took
place in Quincy, Ill.
(AP, 10/13/08)
1858 Oct 15, The seventh and final
debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen
Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
(ON, 4/08, p.2)(AP, 10/15/08)
1858 Nov 2, In Illinois Abraham
Lincoln won 4,085 more popular votes for the Senate than did Sen.
Stephen Douglas; however Illinois senators were elected by the state
legislatures and Douglas won reelection there by 8 votes.
(ON, 4/08, p.3)
1861 Nov 9, During the Civil War,
soldiers of the Illinois 11th, 18th, and 29th Regiments, after forcing
the Confederates south, set up camp in Bloomfield, Missouri. Upon
finding the newspaper office empty, they decided to print a newspaper
for their expedition, relating the troop's activities. They called it
the Stars and Stripes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_Stripes_(newspaper))
1862 May, Union Colonel Benjamin
H. Grierson was commissioned a major in the 6th Illinois Cavalry. He
proved to be an excellent cavalry leader despite his prewar experience
as a music teacher who hated horses. Grierson had traveled to various
small towns organizing amateur bands. When the war began, the
Midwesterner enlisted as a private in the infantry. He very much wanted
to do his share of the fighting on foot; while a child, he had been
kicked in the face by a horse and still harbored a severe dislike for
the equine creatures. This was not to be. A man with little military
training or experience--and a pronounced dislike of horses--would soon
prove to be one of the most skilled cavalry leaders of the war. His
raids in early 1863 greatly helped Grant’s army in the siege of
Vicksburg.
(HN, 6/28/01)
1865 Feb 1, Lincoln's home state
of Illinois became the first to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment
abolishing slavery throughout the United States.
(HNPD, 2/1/99)
1865 May 3,
President Lincoln's funeral train arrived in Springfield, Illinois.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1865 May 4, Abraham Lincoln was
buried in a temporary tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield,
Illinois.
(SFEC, 3/22/98,
p.T4)(www.state.il.us/HPA/hs/Tomb.htm)
1865 Jul 21, Wild Bill Hickok
killed gunman Dave Tutt in Springfield, Illinois, in the first formal
quick-draw duel.
(HN, 7/21/98)
1866 The veteran organization
Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was formed in Springfield, Illinois,
in 1866. The patriotic organization of U.S. Civil War veterans who
served in Federal forces was formed to protect the interests of the
veterans. The GAR had a peak membership of more than 400,000 in 1890
and was a powerful political influence. The organization was dissolved
in 1956.
(HNQ, 8/30/98)
1867 Willis Polk (d.1924) was born
and grew up in Jacksonville, Ill. He later became an acclaimed
architect in California.
(Ind, 2/9/02, 5A)
1868 Mar 2, University of Illinois
opened.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1868 Frederick Law Olmsted began
laying out the planned Riverside community outside Chicago over 1,600
acres of Illinois prairie.
(WSJ, 5/25/99, p.A26)
1868 Gustav and Albert Goelitz,
German emigrants, started the Goelitz candy business in Illinois. The
company later moved to California and invented the all natural Jelly
Belly jelly bean in 1976.
(SFC, 8/11/99, Z1 p.3)
1870 Jun 30, Ada H. Kepley of
Effingham, Ill., became America's first female law school graduate.
(AP, 6/30/97)
1871 Sep 19, President Abraham
Lincoln's body was transferred to a partially completed permanent tomb
at Springfield, Il.
(www.state.il.us/HPA/hs/Tomb.htm)
1871 Tad Lincoln (18), son of
Abraham Lincoln, died. Pneumonia was suspected.
(SSFC, 3/20/05, Par p.2)
1871 Haeger Potteries of Dundee,
Ill., dates to this time.
(SFC, 1/4/06, p.G2)
1872 Mar 22, Illinois became 1st
state to require sexual equality in employment.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1873 Oct 27, Farmer Joseph F.
Glidden applied for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually
received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of
barbed wire. [see Nov 24, 1874] Joseph Glidden and Isaac Ellwood formed
a company in De Kalb, Illinois to manufacture barbed wire, an essential
product of old West. Patents on barbed wire were granted as early as
1867, but Glidden was the first to devise a commercially viable way of
producing it after seeing a sample of barbed wire at a fair in 1873.
Glidden and Ellwood’s product greatly increased the use of barbed wire
to protect crops and livestock from roaming cattle. Open ranges
dramatically dwindled in the face of new fencing over the next two
decades.
(HN, 10/27/98)(HNQ, 2/12/01)
1874 Nov 24, Farmer Joseph
Glidden's patent for barbed wire was granted. Glidden designed a simple
wire barb that attached to a double-strand wire, as well as a machine
to mass-produce the wire. The invention was a welcome alternative to
other types of fencing for farming on the arid Great Plains--wood
fences and stone walls were difficult to construct because of the lack
of sufficient rocks and trees, and the existing wire fences were easily
broken when cattle leaned against them. The use of barbed-wire fences
changed ranching and farming life. Farmers could keep roaming cattle
and sheep off their land, but open-range cowboys and Native American
farmers were restricted to the land and resources not claimed and
marked by the new fences. As more settlers moved onto the plains, the
amount of public, shared land decreased and open-range farming became
obsolete.
(HNPD, 11/23/98)(HN, 11/24/98)
1880 George M. Pullman established
his own industrial community at Lake Calumet, south of Chicago.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)
1883 The factory of the Racine
Silver Plate Co. re-opened in Rockford, Ill and was re-named the
Rockford Silver Plate Co. Its factory in Racine had burned down in 1882.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1885 Arcade Manufacturing Co. of
Freeport, Ill., began as a manufacturer of industrial castings and
household items. It introduced toys in the 1890s and by the 1920s was a
major manufacturer of high-quality cast-iron toys.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.G5)
1886 Josephine Garis Cochrane
(d.1913), a housewife from Shelbyville, Ill., patented the first
dishwashing machine. She named it the Garis-Cochran Dishwashing Machine
in honor of her father and late husband.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(ON, 4/00, p.12)
1887 Apr 10, President Abraham
Lincoln was re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Il.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1887 William D. Gates founded the
American Terra Cotta and Ceramic Co. (Gates Potteries) in Terra Cotta,
Ill. The company was sold in 1930 and renamed American Terra Cotta Co.
It closed in 1966.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.G7)
1892 Feb 12, Illinois made
President Lincoln's birthday a state holiday. Other states followed
suit over the years.
(AP, 3/9/05)
1894 Feb 14, Jack Benny (d.1974),
comedian, radio and television performer... and violinist, was born as
Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan, Ill: "Age is strictly a case of mind
over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
(HN, 2/14/01)(AP, 2/14/08)
1894 May 11, Workers at the
Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois went on strike. 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. [see Jun 26]
(AP, 5/11/97)(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A3)(SFC, 10/4/02,
p.A17)
1894 Jun 26, The American Railway
Union with 125,000 workers, led by Eugene Debs, called a general strike
in sympathy with Pullman workers that blocked freight traffic in and
out of Chicago. [see May 11]
(AP, 6/26/97)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1894 The Decatur Fairest Wheel
Works of Decatur, Ill., made its first "Fairest Wheel," a glass wheel
with a wood framed glass coin box that dispensed cigars for coins.
(SFC, 3/31/99, Z1 p.6)
1896 Nov 6, Jim Jordan, radio
comedian (Fibber McGee), was born in Peoria, Il.
(MC, 11/6/01)
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)
1899 Feb 20, Illinois Tel &
Tel was granted a franchise for a Chicago freight tunnel system.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1899 Jul 21, Ernest Hemingway
(d.1961), American novelist and short-story writer, was born in Oak
Park, Ill. "Never confuse motion with action."
(AP, 7/21/97)(HN, 7/21/98)(AP, 11/21/98)
1900 Feb 2, Six cities, Boston,
Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis agreed to form
baseball's American League.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1900 Apr 30, Engineer John Luther
"Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad was killed in a
Cannonball Express wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the
controls in an effort to save the passengers.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1906 The Illinois Cabinet Co. was
founded. It was later purchased by General Electric, renamed to
Illinois Cabinet Works, and used to make cabinets for GE television
sets.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.G2)
1907 Aug 21, Dr. Roy K. Marshall,
TV scientist (Nature of Things), was born in Glen Carbon, Ill.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1908 Apr 2, Buddy Ebsen (d.2003),
actor-dancer, was born in Belleville, Ill. He played Jed Clampett in
the popular television series The Beverly Hillbillies.
(AP,
4/2/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Ebsen)
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 Aug 14, A race war broke out
in Springfield, Illinois. Angry over reports that a black man had
sexually assaulted a white woman, a white mob wanted to take a recently
arrested suspect from the city jail and kill him. Most blacks had fled
the city, but as the mob swept through the area, they captured and
lynched a black barber, Scott Burton, who had stayed behind to protect
his home. Rioting continued the next day leaving a total of two blacks
and 5 whites dead and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
property destroyed. Some 4,000 state militiamen were required to quell
the riot, which helped inspire the creation of the NAACP the following
year.
(www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329622.html)(AP,
8/14/08)(WSJ, 1/20/08, p.A12)
1908 Aug 30, Actor Fred MacMurray
(d.1991) was born in Kankakee, Ill.
(AP,
8/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_MacMurray)
1908 Nov 12, Harry Blackmun
(d.1999), later Supreme Court Justice, was born in Nashville, Ill., and
grew up in St. Paul, Minn.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.A15)(AP, 11/12/08)
1909 Jun 14, Burl Ives, folk
singer, actor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), was born in Hunt, Ill.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1911 Feb 6, Ronald Reagan was born
in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan went on to become a film actor, governor
of California (1967-1975) and the 40th president of the United States
(1981-1989) and was credited with ending the Cold War.
(HN, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 8/20/99)
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)
1912 Nov 25, American College of
Surgeons incorporated in Springfield, Ill.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1912 A tornado struck Grant Park,
Illinois, and destroyed the town. 2 local mansions were spared.
(SFC, 7/15/03, p.A2)
1913 Strombeck-Becker
Manufacturing Co. of Moline Illinois was incorporated by J.F. Strombeck
and R.D. Becker. They made wooden handles and tent poles and expanded
into toys in 1919 and dollhouse furniture in 1931. In 1962 the company
dropped out of the toy business.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.G4)
1915 Sep 11, Sir William Cornelius
Van Horne, former president of the CPR, died in Montreal. His mansion
was on Minister’s Island in New Brunswick, Canada. The American-born
Van Horne had managed the construction of Canada’s transcontinental
railway (1881-1886). Van Horne was buried in Joliet, Ill.
(SFEC, 5/25/97,
p.T7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cornelius_Van_Horne)
1917 May 26, Up to eight separate
tornadoes cut a path of destruction for nearly 300 miles across
Illinois and Indiana.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.D8)
1917 Jul 2, Race riots erupted in
East St. Louis, Illinois. The official death toll was put at 48, but as
many as 200 were believed killed. In 1964 Elliott M. Rudwick authored
Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917.” In 2008 Harper Barnes
authored “Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil
Rights Movement.”
(SFC, 7/18/08,
p.E3)(www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54020510)
1919 Dec 19, The Thimble Theatre
cartoon strip, by Elzie Segar (1894-1938) of Chesater, Ill., made its
debut in the New York Journal and featured the characters Olive Oyl,
Castor Oyl, and Ham Gravy, who were the comic's leads for about a
decade. Segar added Popeye in 1929.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.C._Segar)
1919 The Winnetka Plan was a
widely-imitated approach to elementary education developed in Winnetka,
Illinois. The curriculum, which emphasized individualized learning, was
divided into two sections: common essentials and creative activities.
In the common essentials section, the pupil was able to advance upon
mastering the material. In the creative section, which included music,
art, and physical activities, pupils could learn as much or as little
as they wanted.
(HNQ, 12/7/00)
1920 Mar 17, John La Montaine,
composer (Pulitzer 1959), was born in Oak Park, Ill.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1920 Apr 20, John Paul Stevens,
103rd Supreme Court Justice (1975-), was born in Illinois.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1920-1928 The Reagan family settled in Dixon, Ill.,
and Ronald Reagan attended Dixon Northside High School.
(SSFC, 6/6/04, A12)
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)
1925 Mar 18, The great Tri-State
Tornado killed 695 people in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri and injured
some 13,000 people, and causing $17 million in property damage.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 5/11/03, Par p.A11)
1925 Nov 17, Actor Rock Hudson was
born in Winnetka, Ill.
(AP, 11/17/97)
1925 The Rockford Silver Plate Co.
was sold to Raymond Sheets and was re-named to Sheets-Rockford Silver
Plate Co.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1926 May 25, Miles Davis, American
jazz trumpeter, was born in Alton, IL. He is considered the prophet of
the "cool" school. His albums included The Birth of Cool and Miles
Ahead.
(HN, 5/25/99)(SC, 5/25/02)
1926 Sep 15, Bobby Short, singer
and pianist (Carlisle Hotel), was born in Danville, Ill.
(HN,
9/15/00)(www.delafont.com/music_acts/bobby-short.htm)
1926 A collection of US roads from
Chicago to Los Angeles were improved and formed what would be
designated as US 66. It was later replaced by 3 interstates, I-55 in
Illinois, I-44 in Missouri and Oklahoma, and I-40 to LA. Route 66 was
decertified in 1985. In 2006 Arthur Krim authored “Route 66:
Iconography of the American Highway.”
(WSJ, 6/17/06, p.P8)
1926 The town of Monsanto was
founded in southeast Illinois by Monsanto Corp. as a tax and
regulation-free dumping location. The name was changed to Sauget in the
1970s, after Leo Sauget, the first town president. The area was later
identified as one of the most polluted communities in the region. In
1992 the rock band Uncle Tupelo produced the song “Sauget Wind,” which
included the verse They’re poisoning the air / For personal wealth…”
(WSJ, 10/3/06, p.A1)
1929 Jan 17, The first Popeye
character appeared in the NY Journal Thimble Theater cartoon strip by
Elzie Segar (1894-1938) of Chester, Ill.
(WSJ, 10/15/96,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.C._Segar)
1930 Feb 15, Wenona beat Toluca in
an Illinois Basketball Tournament in 10 overtimes.
(440 Int’l.,
2/15/99)(www.illinoishsglorydays.com/id36.html)
1930s Hubley Manufacturing of
Lancaster, Pa., made cast-iron toys that later became valued as
collectibles. The Arcade Manuf. Co. of Freeport, Ill., also made
similar toys.
(SFC, 1/28/98, Z1 p.3)
1932 Federal charges were brought
against Samuel Insull, who had bribed lawmakers and the Illinois Power
Commission to prevent local governments from generating their own
power. His investors lost over $1 billion. Insull fled the country, was
extradited, tried and acquitted of all charges.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1932 Ronald Reagan graduated from
Eureka College in Eureka, Ill. He majored in economics and sociology
and served as student body president.
(SSFC, 6/6/04, A12)
1935 Jan 10, Sherrill Milnes,
baritone (Scarpia, Rigoletto), was born in Hinsdale, Illinois.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1935 The state legislature
outlawed "English" and designated "the American language" as the
official tongue of the state.
(SFC, 4/15/00, p.D3)
1937 Mar 24, A bus blew a tire,
went out of control and 18 people were killed in Salem, Illinois.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1938 Aug 28, The first degree
given to a ventriloquist’s dummy is awarded to Charlie McCarthy—Edgar
Bergen’s wooden partner. The honorary degree, "Master of Innuendo and
Snappy Comeback," was presented on radio by Ralph Dennis, the dean of
the School of Speech at Northwestern University.
(HN, 8/28/00)
1942 Mar 17, John Wayne Gacy,
serial killer (32 boys), was born in Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1942 Oct 31, David Ogden Stiers,
actor (Winchester-M*A*S*H, Doc), was born in Peoria, Ill.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber
(d.1998 at 86), research physicist at the Univ. of Illinois, discovered
that spontaneous fission is associated with the emission of neutrons.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.21)
1944 Oct 28,Dennis Franz, actor
(NYPD Blue), was born in Maywood, Ill.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1946 Feb 4, The first Mormons left
Nauvoo, Ill., and crossed the Mississippi River heading toward Utah.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1946 Apr 25, A train crash at
Napierville, Illinois, killed 45-48. The "Exposition Flyer" was rammed.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1947 Apr 16, Carol Mosely Braun,
later US Senator for Illinois (1992-1998), was born in Chicago.
(SFC, 1/14/04, p.A2)
1948 Paul Simon (19) borrowed
$3,600 and bought a failing newspaper in Troy, Illinois. He sold his
group of 14 newspapers in 1966 and went on to became a US Senator.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1949 Apr 5, The 60 year old St.
Anthony's Hospital burned and killed 77 in Effingham, Ill.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1951 Aug 11, The Mississippi River
flooded some 100,000 acres in Ks, Okla, Mo and Ill.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1951 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
designed the modernist Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill. The one-story
space was walled on all sides by glass and is considered one of the
greatest private houses of the 20th century. In 2003 it was purchased
by preservationists at auction for $7.5 million.
(WSJ, 5/23/01, p.A24)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.A2)
1952 In Mattoon Gene Hoots bought
the Frigid Queen ice cream shop from his uncle. He expanded the
business with hamburgers in 1954 and coined the named Burger King with
a registered state trademark. He later lost a suit against the Florida
Burger King chain whose federal trademark was ruled to hold priority.
However the courts ruled that the franchise could not open within 20
miles of the Mattoon restaurant.
(SFC, 8/19/98, p.B2)
1953 Dec 9, John Malkovich, actor
and director (Killing Fields), was born in Christopher, Ill.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1955 Apr 15, Ray Kroc acquired the
McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants. He was a food service
equipment salesman who owned the national marketing rights to the
milk-shake mixers used at the chain. He purchased the chain from
Richard (d.1998 at 89) and Maurice McDonald (d.1971) who started the
operation in California in 1948. Kroc built his first restaurant in Des
Plains, Illinois, and later established his world headquarters and a
company museum there.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(HN, 4/15/98)(SFC, 7/15/98,
p.A20)
1955 Jun 27, 1st automobile seat
belt legislation was enacted in Illinois.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1956 Edwina Froehlich (1915-2008)
co-founded the La Leche League in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago,
to promote the breast-feeding of babies.
(WSJ, 6/14/08, p.A7)
1960 Aug 18, Enovid 10, the 1st
commercial oral contraceptive, debuted in Skokie, Ill.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1963 J.L. Wade (1913-2007) built
his first purple martin bird houses in Griggsville, Illinois. In 1965
he authored “What You Should Know About the Purple Martin,” which
became a bestseller among ornithologists. Wade claimed that each bird
ate some 2,000 mosquitoes per day.
(WSJ, 6/23/07, p.A8)
1964 Aug 15, A race riot took
place in Dixmoor, a suburb of Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1966 Jul 24, Oakland-born golfer
Tony Lema (32), while flying with his wife Betty to an exhibition match
in Chicago, Illinois, crashed on the seventh hole of a golf course in
Lansing, Illinois, after their chartered twin-engine Beechcraft Bonanza
ran out of fuel. All four people on board were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Lema)
1966 Aug 27, There was a race riot
in Waukegan, Illinois.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1966 In Kenilworth, Illinois,
Valerie Percy (21), one of the twin daughters of Senator Charles Percy,
was murdered during a suspected robbery. No one was ever arrested.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, Par p.4)
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 Jul 17, Race riots took place
in Cairo, Illinois.
(MC, 7/17/02)
1968 May 3, A Black Student Sit-In
at the Bursar's Office began. It lasted for 38 hours, after the
Northwestern University refused to accede to the demands of For Members
Only, the black undergraduate student group.
(www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/onthisday/2009/05/)
1968 Sep 6, Feminists protesting
outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., tossed
articles including cosmetics, girdles and bras into a trash can
ostensibly for burning, although nothing was actually set on fire. Miss
Illinois Judith Ford won the pageant.
(AP, 9/7/08)
1968 Gwendolyn Brooks (d.2000),
African-American poet, became the poet laureate of Illinois.
(SFC, 12/4/00, p.E3)
1968 Paul Simon won election as
lieutenant governor of Illinois.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1968 Capital punishment was
restored by the state.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A8)
c1968-1969 James F. Phillips (d.2001 at 70) began
engaging in environmental activism in the Fox Valley area of Illinois
after he found dead ducks in the Fox River. He was later described as
the 1st notorious eco-saboteur.
(SFC, 10/25/01, p.A25)
1969 Sep 7, Senate Republican
leader Everett McKinley Dirksen (b.1896) of Illinois, ("The Wizard of
Ooze") died at 73 in Washington, D.C.
(AP,
9/7/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Dirksen)
1970 Oct 10, Former Illinois
Secretary of State Paul Powell (b.1902) died. Investigators soon found
nearly half a million dollars in cash and checks, from unsuspecting
drivers paying for their license plates, crammed into shoe boxes inside
his hotel room.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Powell_(politician))
1972 John Wayne Gacy began to lure
young men and boys to his home in Chicago for sex, then tortured and
strangled them. He was arrested in 1978.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A2)
1972 The Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory, Fermilab, near Chicago was completed for $235
million under the direction of Robert Rathbun Wilson (d.2000 at 85). It
was capable of accelerating protons to 400 billion electron volts.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A21)
1974 Apr 3, A series of 148 deadly
tornadoes struck wide parts of the South and Midwest before jumping
across the border into Canada; some 330 people were killed in 13 states
(Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
Virginia. Total property damage was estimated at $600 million. In 2007
Mark Levine authored “F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent
Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century.”
(AP, 4/3/99)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05,
p.A7)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1976 Henry Hyde (1924-2007),
freshman Congressman from Illinois, sponsored an amendment to cut
federal funding for abortions by women on Medicaid.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.32)(SFC, 11/30/07, p.A6)
1977 Jun 27, Illinois reinstated
the capital punishment.
(www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?RecNum=1875&SubjectID=45)
1978 Jan 27, The State Supreme
Court ruled that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie,
Illinois.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1978 May 25, A package bomb
injured Terry Marker, a Northwestern Univ. security guard. It was later
attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1 p.4)
1978 Jun 22, Neo-Nazis called off
plans to march in the Jewish community of Skokie, Ill.
(www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1978/ii781111.html)
1978 Dec 21, Police in Des
Plaines, Ill., arrested John W. Gacy Jr. and began unearthing the
remains of 33 men and boys that Gacy was later convicted of murdering.
27 bodies were found under his house, 2 in the back yard and 4 were
fished out of the nearby Des Plaines River. He was executed in 1994.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A2)(AP, 12/21/98)
1979 May 25, 275 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.
(AP, 5/25/97)
1980 Jun 10, A package bomb
injured United Airlines Pres. Percy Wood at his home in Lake Forest,
Ill. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1
p.4)(www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/bombings.html)
1980 Apr 5, Eleven Puerto Rican
FALN members were arrested for attempting to rob an armored truck at
Northwestern University; three were linked to the raid on the
Carter-Mondale campaign headquarters. Several of those arrested were
granted clemency in 1999.
(WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A22)
1980 Peoples Gas was renamed
Peoples Energy Corp. and operated as the holding company for two local
utilities. It had started as Chicago Gas in 1855.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.
R-45)(www.utfleets.com/issues/article/?articleid=00000050)
1983 Feb 25, A 10-year-old girl,
Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville in DuPage County, Ill., was raped and
murdered. Rolando Cruz was convicted and served 10 years on death row
before a sheriff's officer recanted on his story and exonerated Cruz.
In 1999 7 prosecutors and sheriff's deputies went on trial on charges
of conspiracy to frame an innocent man. Cruz, a small-time criminal,
started out as an informant in the case. Charges against 2 prosecutors
were dismissed and 4 sheriff's officers and a prosecutor were acquitted
in 1999. In 2005 convicted killer Brian Dugan was indicted by a DuPage
County grand jury, a full decade after an expert concluded DNA evidence
linked him to the crime.
(SFC, 3/9/99, p.A6)(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A5)(SFC, 6/5/99,
p.A7)(AP, 2/25/06)
1983 Oct 22, In Marion, Ill., 2
handcuffed inmates at the federal prison killed 2 guards in separate
incidents. This led to permanent lockdown at Marion, the beginning of
the ADX prison, administrative maximum.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A3,4)
1983 The US House censured Reps.
Gerry Studds of Massachusetts and Daniel B. Crane of Illinois for
having sexual relations with pages. Studds, a liberal Democrat who
acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1973 and making
sexual advances to two others, admitted an error in judgment but did
not apologize. The first openly gay member of Congress went on to win
re-election until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Crane admitted
having sex several times with a 17-year-old female page in 1980. He
apologized to the House in a quavering voice "for the shame I have
brought down on this institution." The conservative Republican was
defeated a year later.
(AP, 9/30/06)
1984 Mar 2, One of the first
McDonald's franchises was closed in Des Plaines, IL.
(http://tinyurl.com/28tp6z)
1984 May 17, A federal bailout of
$4.5 billion kept the Continental Illinois Bank afloat. The 7th biggest
US bank’s loss of half its funds overnight led to America’s return to
strict capital requirements. Fed chairman Paul Volcker lent $8 billion
through the discount window and endorsed the bailout of uninsured
depositors. CIB was later sold to BankAmerica.
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey
p.12)(http://tinyurl.com/358vwv)
1984 Oct 31, In Decatur, Illinois,
2 young girls were assaulted and killed. In 2009 DNA evidence revealed
that Melvin Johnson (d.2003) was the murderer.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A4)
1984 Illinois voters elected Paul
Simon to the US Senate.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1985 Apr 4, Gary Dotson, who
served six years of a prison sentence for rape, was freed on bail from
the Joliet Correctional Center in Illinois after his accuser, Cathleen
Crowell Webb, testified that the attack had never occurred.
(AP, 4/4/05)
1985 May 12, Illinois Gov. James
Thompson commuted the sentence of Gary Dotson, who'd served six years
in prison for a rape that the alleged victim later said never happened.
(AP, 5/12/05)
1985 Sep 22, Rock and country
music artists participated in FarmAid, a concert staged in Champaign,
Ill., to help the nation's farmers. The first Farm Aid concert was held
to support problems facing US farmers and their families.
(SFEC, 10/13/96, p.A9)(AP, 9/22/05)
1986 In Morton, Ill., the first
pumpkin-tossing contest was held. The winning throw was 50 feet. By
1996 a compressed air cannon projected a pumpkin a record 2,710 feet at
a velocity of more than 600 mph.
(WSJ, 10/23/97, p.A1)
1987 Mar 2, Two sets of
quintuplets were born on the same day in the USA as Rosalind Helms
delivered a basketball team of bouncing babies in Peoria, IL and Robin
Jenkins became the mother of five in Las Vegas, NV,- beating the odds
there, to be sure.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)
1987 Illinois Senator Paul Simon
announced that he would seek the nomination for US President. He
suspended his campaign in April, 1988.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1990 Aug 8, Pete Rose began a
5-month prison term at Marion (IL) Federal prison camp.
(www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Rose_Pete.stm)
1991 Motorola established a
corporate museum in Schaumberg, Ill.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1992 Jan 12, HAL, the
Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer, from the 1968 Arthur C.
Clark and Stanley Kubrick movie and book, “became operational” at the
HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois. [1997 article claimed 1/12/97 as
birthdate] The book "HAL’s Legacy: 2001’s Computer as Dream and
Reality" was published in 1997 by MIT Press. The birthday in the movie
was 1/12/92.
1992 Mar 17, Democrat Bill Clinton
scored big primary victories in Illinois and Michigan. In Illinois,
Sen. Alan Dixon was defeated in his primary re-election bid by Carol
Moseley-Braun, who went on to become the first black woman in the U.S.
Senate.
(AP, 3/17/02)
1992 Nov 3, In Illinois Democrat
Carol Moseley-Braun became the first black woman elected to the U.S.
Senate. She lost her Senate seat in 1998.
(AP, 11/3/97)(HN, 11/4/98)
1992 Dec 29, David and Sharon
Schoo of St. Charles, Ill., were arrested at O'Hare International
Airport in Chicago upon their return from vacation for leaving their
young daughters at home, alone.
(AP, 12/29/97)
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 16, The surging
Mississippi River charged through a levee at West Quincy, Mo., closing
the Bayview Bridge, the only bridge across the river to Illinois for
more than 200 miles.
(AP, 7/16/98)
1993 Harrah’s opened a Riverboat
Casino on the Ohio River in Joliet, Ill.
(SFC, 8/15/05, p.A2)
1994 Mar 15, Illinois Congressman
Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
defeated four Democratic primary challengers in his bid for
re-election.
(AP, 3/15/99)
1994 May 10, The state of Illinois
executed convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy (52) for the murders
of 33 young men and boys. He was executed at Stateville Correctional
Center near Joliet. A search for more bodies was continued in 1998.
Gacy left behind some clown art that was auctioned and purchased for
$20,000 by Joe Roth, who burned all of it.
(AP, 5/10/97)(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.A2)(SFC, 2/6/99,
p.A13)
1994 May 31, U.S. Rep. Dan
Rostenkowski, D-Ill., maintaining his innocence, was indicted on 17
felony counts alleging he'd plundered nearly $700,000 from the
government. (He later pleaded guilty to two counts of misusing federal
funds and spent 451 days in federal custody).
(AP, 5/31/99)
1994 Aug 14, Eight children who
were left alone died in an early morning house fire in Carbondale, Ill.
(AP, 8/14/99)
1995 Jul 8, A deadly heat wave
began in the midsection of the US. It claimed more than 800 lives, more
than half of them in Illinois.
(AP, 7/8/00)
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 Oct 21, Rioting inmates
surrendered control of a prison dormitory in Greenville, Illinois,
ending a one-day uprising that began after the government ordered
federal prisons locked down nationwide.
(AP, 10/21/00)
1995 Oct, In Kewanee, Ill., Scott
English killed Jami Pollock (3) as she and her mother slept. Tabitha
Pollock, the mother, was later convicted of 1st degree murder for not
preventing the murder and sentenced to 36 years in prison. In 2002 the
state Supreme Court overturned the sentence. English was sentenced to
life in prison.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J3)
1996 Jan 23, Marvin and Kay
Lichtman were murdered and their 22-room mansion was burned during a
robbery in the wealthy Illinois suburb of Barrington Hills. In 2005
Peter Hommerson, a fugitive charged with killing a wealthy Illinois
couple, was captured at a Mexican resort after tourists recognized him
from a crime watch television program.
(AP, 8/13/05)
1996 Apr 9, Former representative
Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), the once-powerful House Ways and Means
chairman, pleaded guilty to two mail fraud charges in a deal that
brought with it a 17-month prison term. He was to pay his own way at an
average rate of $21,352/year. Rostenkowski served 15 months, and was
pardoned by President Clinton in 2000.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A4)(AP, 4/9/06)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield, Ill.,
a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s gorilla
exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla with her own
2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
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 Sep 13, Katherine Shindle of
Illinois was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A2)
1997 Sep 22, In the farming
village of Roby, Illinois, a standoff between police and Shirley Allen
(51) began that turned into a 5-week police siege. Her brother
initially showed up with a court order for a psychiatric exam and she
refused to comply. She was finally captured after being shot with
rubber bullets. Shirley Ann Allen was apprehended when she stepped out
onto her porch on October 30, 1997. Illinois State Police officers
fired several large rubber bullets at her from a grenade launcher,
striking her several times. Apparently not seriously injured, Allen was
taken to St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Illinois for her
"evaluation." Ending on Thursday, October 30, 1997 a 39-day police
siege, the longest in Illinois history. According to Illinois State
Police Director Terry Gainer between $750,000 and $1,000,000 of
taxpayer money was spent during the stand-off. After six weeks in a
mental hospital, Allen was released when doctors said she posed no
danger to herself or others.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/31/97,
p.A3)(www.outlawslegal.com/friendly/shirley.htm)
1997 Oct 15, Former Illinois rep
Dan Rostenkowski was released from custody for mail fraud.
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0842480.html)
1997 Dec 22, A small plane crashed
near Hampshire, Ill., and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A6)
1997 Dec, A bomb at the Oakwood
United Methodist Church killed Brian Plawer (46).
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A1)
1997 US Senator Paul Simon
(1928-2003) of Illinois retired. He was succeeded by Rep. Richard
Durbin.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1997 In East St. Louis Darnell
McGee, aka "Boss Man," was slain in an apparent robbery. It was later
learned that he had AIDS and may have spread the virus to as many as 30
women.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.A3)
1997 Deere & Co. opened a
corporate museum in Moline.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 21, Lloyd Wayne Hampton
was executed for the murder of Roy Pendleton (69), a retired janitor in
Troy. Hampton was the 11th person executed by the state since capital
punishment was restored.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb, In Noble Christopher
Churchill (16) killed his half-brother and 4 others with a hammer
during a drunken rage. He was convicted in 1999.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A3)
1998 May 20, In Streamwood Ill.,
Frank Capaci, a retired electrician, won the record $195 mil Powerball
lottery of Wisconsin. He chose to take a $104.23 mil lump sum payment.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A3)
1998 May 24, In Danville, Ill, an
explosion occurred at the First Assembly of God Church and injured 33
members, mostly teenagers. The cause was not yet immediately known. The
cause was determined the next day to have been a bomb.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A1)
1998 May 28, In Danville, Ill.,
Rick White (39) died in a garage explosion as FBI agents were arriving
to ask questions in connection with the May 24 Church bombing.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A3)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A8)
1999 Feb 20, Gene Siskel (53),
movie critic, died in Evanston, Ill., of complications from brain
surgery.
{film, usa}
(SFEC, 2/20/99, p.D8)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.A19)(AP,
2/20/00)
1999 Mar 15, In Bourbonnais, Ill.,
the "City of New Orleans" Amtrak train derailed after hitting a truck
loaded with steel. At least 14 people were killed and 119 injured.
(SFC, 3/16/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
3/17/99, p.A1)
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 Apr 30, A charter bus flipped
in central Illinois that was carrying hearing-impaired children. One
parent died and 16 children were injured.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A4)
1999 Jun 15, George Morber (80)
and his daughter Carolyn Frederick (52) were found slain in their home
in Gorham, Ill., about 100 yards from a railroad track. Rafael
Resendez-Ramirez was suspected of the murder.
(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A3)
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 Chicago and fired on an Asian-American couple in Northbrook.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 3, Benjamin Nathaniel
Smith fired at Asians and Blacks in Springfield, and Champaign-Urbana,
Illinois.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 4, In Bloomington, Ind.,
Benjamin Nathaniel Smith killed Won Joon Moon (26), a Korean-born
Indiana Univ. student. Later the same day he shot himself dead during a
police chase in Salem, Ill.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1,5)
1999 Aug 2, It was reported that
the national death toll from the recent US-East heat wave hit 185 with
80 dead in Illinois and 44 in Missouri.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug, A World Freefall
Convention was held in Quincy and Jari Kousma gave a big sales pitch
for his new Bird-Man wingsuit for skydiving.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.B1)
1999 Oct 5, Pulitzer Inc. agreed
to buy the Illinois newspapers of Chronicle Publ. For $180 million.
These included the Pantagraph of Bloomington and the 7 community papers
of the Illinois Valley Press.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.B3)
1999 Nov 8, High schools were
closed in Decatur as Jesse Jackson worked to reinstate 7 African
American students who were expelled from school for fighting at a
football game on Sep 17. Felony charges were filed against 4 of the
boys.
(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A2)(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A2)
1999 Nov 16, Rev. Jesse Jackson
was arrested in Decatur for protesting at Eisenhower High School
against the expulsion of 6 students.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 31, Gov. George Ryan
announced that he would impose a moratorium on the state's death
penalty until an inquiry has been conducted as to why more death row
inmates have been exonerated that executed.
(SFC, 1/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 24, In Peoria, Ill., 3
construction workers were killed when scaffolding broke away from the
McClugage Bridge.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A3)
2000 Dec 22, Pres. Clinton
pardoned 59 people including Dan Rostenkowski, former congressman and
chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A1)
2000 Jonathan Mcleod worked as an
intern for the office of Illinois Representative J. Dennis Hastert. He
later noted that Congressional Representatives do not read their mail,
that form letters are immediately thrown away, and that responses to
citizen letters are automatically processed with responses that "say
something without saying anything."
(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.D3)
2001 Jan 26, A Salvation Army van
collided with a truck and 10 people were killed on I 55 near Joliet.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Feb 5, William D. Baker (66),
shot and killed 4 employees at the Navistar factory in Melrose Park and
then shot and killed himself. He was about to begin serving a 5-month
sentence for conspiring to steal engines and parts.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A3)
2001 Feb 15, Cicero’s town
president, Betty Loren-Maltese, and 9 others were charged with stealing
$10 million in taxpayer money and spending it on a horse farm and golf
course.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A5)
2001 Dec 12, Ali-al-Marri, a
citizen of Qatar, was arrested in Peoria, Ill. He had reportedly
entered the USA legally with his wife and five children on 10 September
2001 to pursue post-graduate studies at Bradley Univ. 18 months later,
as he was on the verge of trial for credit card fraud and other
charges, Pres. Bush declared him an enemy combatant and moved him into
military detention. In 2008 the US Supreme Court agreed to decide
whether the president may order that people seized in the US be held
indefinitely and without criminal charges.
(www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21383.htm)(WSJ, 12/6/08, p.A1)
2001 The Illinois Funeral
Director’s Association opened the Museum of Funeral Customs just
outside Oak Ridge Cemetery.
(SSFC, 9/22/02, p.C16)
2002 Feb 28, Dr. Ellen Feinberg
(43) stabbed to death her 10-year-old son and wounded a younger son in
Champaign.
(SFC, 3/2/02, p.A6)
2002 Apr 2, Federal prosecutors
indicted the campaign committee of Gov. George Ryan and 2 former top
aids on charges of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy to obstruct
justice.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A3)
2002 May 3, In rural Iowa and
Illinois and 6 people were injured when 6 of 8 pipe bombs were
detonated in what was called a case of domestic terrorism. Suspect Luke
Helder was later found incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/3/07)
2002 May 7, Lucas John Helder (21)
of Pine Island, Minn., was arrested following a car chase near
Lovelock, Nevada, and charged for the recent series of mailbox pipe
bombs. Helder said he was trying to make a "smiley face" pattern on the
map of his bombings. His series of rural mailbox bombings left six
people wounded in Illinois and Iowa. Helder has since been found
incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/7/07)
2002 May 17, Midwest flooding left
as many as 9 people dead over the last 2 weeks. Missouri Gov. Bob
Holden asked Pres. Bush to declare 37 counties as disaster areas.
Illinois and Indiana were also hard hit.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A3)
2002 Jun 27, Mormons in Nauvoo
planned to dedicate a new $30 million temple.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 5, In Illinois Judge
Harold Frobish of Livingston County ruled that prison inmates can
choose to starve themselves rather than endure years of solitary
confinement and that right outweighs the state’s duty to keep them
alive.
(SFC, 9/7/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 21, Erika Harold, Miss
Illinois, was crowned in Atlantic City NJ, as Miss America 2003.
(SSFC, 9/22/02, p.A2)
2002 Oct 15, Illinois opened
hearings on 140 death row cases.
(SFC, 10/15/02, p.A3)
2003 Jan 11, In Illinois out-going
Gov. Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 Death Row inmates one day after
he freed 4 death row inmates. He called the death penalty process
"arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral." The 4 death row
inmates had all been convicted on evidence gathered by police Lt. Jon
Burge. In 2008 Burge was arrested and charged with lying when he denied
in 2003 that he and detectives under his command tortured murder
suspects.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.A3)(SSFC, 1/12/03, p.A1)(AP,
1/11/08)(SFC, 10/22/08, p.A3)
2003 May 4, In Glenbrook, Ill.,
senior girls of Glenbrook North High engaged in a "powder puff"
football game with junior girls that turned into a hazing melee that
was caught on video and shown on national TV. Several seniors were
later suspended for 10 days. A Civil Suit was later filed on behalf of
3 of the juniors girls.
(SFC, 5/13/03, p.A4)
2003 Sep 2, A car slid off a boat
ramp into Clinton Lake, Ill., and sank under the water. Two people
allegedly made it out of the car before it sank. They were Amanda Hamm
(27) and her boyfriend Maurice Lagrone Jr (28). Three children were
trapped in the car: Christopher Hamm (6), Austin Brown (3), and Kyleigh
Hamm, age 23 months. Hamm and Lagrone were later charged with murder.
In 2007 Amanda Hamm was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Lagrone was
convicted earlier of 1st degree murder and sentenced to life.
(SFC, 2/2/07,
p.A3)(www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24538.asp)
2003 Sep 14, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich directed the state Special Advocate to draft a plan for
busing inexpensive medications from Canada for state employees and
retirees.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 9, Paul Simon (75),
former Illinois Senator (1984-1997), died in Springfield. His work
included 13 published books.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
2003 Dec 17, George Ryan, former
governor of Illinois, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges
of racketeering. Ryan was alter convicted and sentenced to 6 1/2-years
in federal prison sentence for racketeering.
(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A2)(AP, 12/17/08)
2004 Feb 3, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
signed legislation creating a $500 million tax on Illinois hospitals,
which expected increased federal funding under the plan.
(USAT, 2/4/04, p.9A)
2004 Apr 20, A tornado hit Utica,
Ill., and 8 people were killed in the basement of a tavern.
(SFC, 4/22/04, p.A6)(WSJ, 4/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 25, Jack Ryan (44), US
Republican Senate candidate from Illinois, pulled out of the race
following the disclosure of details from his 1999 divorce from TV
actress Jeri Ryan.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.A5)
2004 Jul, Charles L. Harris (44),
manager of the Tradewinds hedge fund in Winnetka, Ill., disappeared
after defrauding investors of some $25 million. He then sent video
messages to investors apologizing and asking that they maintain
confidence in his efforts.
(WSJ, 9/16/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug 8, Alan Keyes, the
Republican two-time presidential hopeful, threw his hat into Illinois'
Senate race (he ended up losing to Democrat Barack Obama).
(AP, 8/8/05)
2004 Dec 7, In Illinois after Babs
the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo, decided to allow
surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social
family. One by one, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building
where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones
called it a "gorilla wake."
(AP, 12/8/04)
2004 Illinois under Gov.
Blagojevich began a prisoner reform program at its Sheridan Prison.
Over the next 2 years prisoners who successfully completed the program
had a 49% lower risk of returning to prison.
(SFC, 8/7/06, p.A6)
2005 Apr 27, Tonya Vasilev (34)
stabbed to death her 2 children, Christian (9) and Grace (3) at their
Hoffman Estates, Ill., home.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.A4)
2005 May 8, In Zion, Ill., Laura
Hobbs (8) and Krystal Tobias (9), out on a Mother's Day bicycle ride,
were stabbed multiple times and left to die near a bike path. Laura’s
father Jerry Hobbs (34), just out of a Texas prison a few weeks, led
police to the girls' bodies in a ravine. He was charged with murder on
the second day of questioning by police.
(AP, 5/10/05)(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 9, Eight-year-old Laura
Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias were found stabbed to death in
Zion, Ill.; Laura's father, Jerry Hobbs III, was later charged with
killing the girls.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2005 May 20, Illinois lawmakers
voted to have the state sell off about $1 billion worth of investments
in companies doing business with Sudan, part of a nationwide campaign
to protest genocide in the African nation.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
signed a new state law that requires Illinois to divest about $1
billion worth of pension investments in companies that do business in
Sudan to protest the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country's
Darfur region.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Aug 10, Pres. Bush visited a
Caterpillar plant in Illinois where he signed a $286.4 billion highway
bill. It was the most expensive US public works program to date.
(WSJ, 8/11/05, p.A1)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.38)
2005 Sep 29, US federal agents
raided an Illinois laboratory where the steroid that ignited the BALCO
scandal is suspected to have been created. Chemist Patrick Arnold was
believed to be the man who resurrected the 1960s steroid norbolethone
as “the clear,” later known as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).
(SFC, 9/30/05, p.A5)
2005 Nov 15, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich signed into law his All Kids program, a plan to extend
comprehensive health care to every child in the state, making it the
1st state to try anything like it.
(Econ, 12/3/05, p.33)(http://tinyurl.com/9uu5p)
2005 Nov 23, A commuter train
slammed into several vehicles caught in a traffic jam on a busy road in
Elmwood Park, Ill., starting a chain reaction that injured at least 10
people.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Mar 12-2006 Mar 13, Swarms of
tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest states of
Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and
Wisconsin. It caused so much damage in Springfield, Ill., that the
mayor compared it to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Jan, An Illinois law took
effect banning investment in Sudan-related bonds, private equity and
stock due to genocide in the Darfur region.
(SSFC, 10/1/06, p.C6)
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.
(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A5)
2006 Jun 13, The Illinois state
agriculture department said a pest blamed for killing millions of trees
across the Midwest has reached Illinois, prompting officials to prepare
a detection and eradication plan they expect to begin within the next
few weeks.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Sep 1, In Chad US Senator
Barack Obama held talks with President Idriss Deby Itno on the crisis
in Sudan's Darfur region and on Chad's oil production, on the final
stop of the African-American politician's tour of the continent.
(AP, 9/1/06)
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 Sep 15, In East St. Louis,
Ill., Jimella Tunstall (23) bled to death after sustaining an abdominal
wound caused by a sharp object. Her body was found Sep 21. On Sep 23
investigators found Tunstall’s 3 dead children in a washer and dryer.
Prosecutors charged Tiffany Hall (24), a family friend, with the murder
of Tunstall and her fetus.
(AP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep 23, Three young children
were found dead in an East St. Louis, Ill., apartment, hours after
Tiffany Hall was charged with killing their pregnant mother and her
fetus in a grisly attack. Hall has since been charged with first-degree
murder in the deaths of Jimella Tunstall and her children, as well as
intentional homicide of Tunstall's fetus.
(AP, 9/23/07)
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 28, In Jerseyville, Ill.,
a teenager carrying a Bible and shouting "I want Jesus" was shot twice
with a police stun gun and died the next day at a St. Louis hospital.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Barack Obama, US Senator from
Illinois, authored “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream.”
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.42)
2007 Jan 16, Sen. Barack Obama
(D-Ill.) launched his bid for the White House.
(AP, 1/16/08)
2007 Feb 10, Democrat Barack Obama
announced in Illinois that he is running for the White House in 2008.
(AP, 2/10/07)
2007 Apr 15, A fire in Quincy,
Illinois, killed 5 children. Police arrested Zachary Meeks (27), a
cousin who had a grudge with the victim’s parents stemming from a
drug-related prison sentence.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A5)
2007 Jun 2, Thomas M. Siebel (54),
the founder and former chairman of Siebel Systems Inc., announced he
will make a $100 million donation to the University of Illinois, his
alma mater. This was the largest gift in the university's history.
Siebel pledged to give the gift to the Urbana-Champaign campus upon his
death.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 7, Severe thunderstorms
spawned tornadoes, produced baseball-size hail and dropped more than 6
inches of rain across the Upper Midwest, killing a swimmer in Illinois.
Four people in Wisconsin were injured, none seriously. A northern
Wisconsin resort was demolished by one of at least five tornadoes that
swept across the state.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 14, In Channahon, Ill., 3
children and a woman were found shot to death in a sport utility
vehicle parked just off a service road. On June 23 authorities charged
Christopher Vaughn (32) with two murder counts per victim, saying he
gunned down his family in their sport utility vehicle.
(AP, 6/14/07)(AP, 6/24/07)
2007 Sep 19, Julian Walker (34) of
Atlanta, Georgia, suspected in the slayings of his ex-wife and his
girlfriend’s father, shot and killed himself after he was surrounded by
police in Fairview Heights, Ill.
(SFC, 9/20/07, p.A8)
2007 Oct 28, In Joliet, Illinois,
Stacy Peterson (23), the current wife of police officer Drew Peterson,
was last seen. On Nov 10 state police said Peterson is no longer a
person of interest in the disappearance but a suspect. A coroner's jury
ruled the 2004 death of Kathleen Savio, Peterson's third wife, an
accident. On Nov 17 former NYC chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden
analyzed Kathleen Savio's remains and concluded she died after a
struggle. In 2008 Dr. Larry W. Blum said in an autopsy report that
Kathleen Savio died by drowning and her death was ruled a homicide. In
2009 Peterson (55) was arrested during a traffic stop and faced murder
charges.
(AP, 11/10/07)(AP, 11/17/07)(AP, 2/22/08)(AP, 5/8/09)
2007 Nov 29, Henry Hyde (b.1924),
former Illinois Republican Representative (1975-2007), died. In 1976 he
attached an amendment to a spending bill barring the use of federal
funds for abortions. In 1998 he led House efforts to impeach Pres.
Clinton for allegedly lying about his affair with intern Monica
Lewinsky.
(SFC, 11/30/07,
p.A6)(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H001022)
2007 Dec 23, High wind and ice
coated power lines blacked out tens of thousands of people in the
Midwest. The storm was blamed for at least 22 deaths. At least 8 people
in Minnesota, 5 in Wisconsin, 3 each in Indiana and Wyoming and one
each in Michigan, Texas and Kansas were killed in traffic accidents.
(AP, 12/23/07)(WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A1)(SFC, 12/25/07,
p.A11)
2008 Jan 7, Tornadoes were
reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin,
Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 31, Dorothy Dixon (29), 6
months pregnant, was found dead at a home in Alton, Ill. Housemates had
used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun and
doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin.
Investigators put much of the blame on Michelle Riley (35), who they
said befriended Dixon but pocketed monthly Social Security checks she
got because of her developmental delays.
(AP, 3/22/08)
2008 Feb 14, In DeKalb, Illinois,
former student Steven Kazmierczak (27) killed six people at Northern
Illinois University before committing suicide. 15 people were wounded.
(AP, 2/15/08)
2008 Mar 19, Flooding forced
hundreds of people to flee their homes and closed scores of roads
across a wide swath of the US midsection as a huge storm system poured
as much as 10 inches of rain on the region. Flooding was reported in
parts of Arkansas, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, Missouri and
Kentucky with over a dozen deaths.
(AP, 3/19/08)(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Apr 18, A magnitude 5.2
earthquake hit southern Illinois in the Ozark Dome region and was felt
across the Midwest.
(SFC, 4/19/08, p.A5)
2008 Jun 18, In Illinois Jeff Pelo
(43), a former Bloomington police sergeant, was found guilty on 35
counts, including 25 of aggravated sexual assault from 2002-2005.
(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A6)
2008 Jun 18, Floodwaters breached
two levees in western Illinois and threatened more Mississippi River
towns in Missouri after inundating much of Iowa for the past week. One
official estimated up to 47 square miles could be flooded.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 25, Jerry Brown,
California’s attorney general, sued Countrywide Financial for unfair
business practices relating to home loan mortgages. Lisa madigan, the
attorney general of Illinois, also filed suit against Countrywide,
which is being acquired by Bank of America. The Washington State Dept.
of Financial Institutions filed an administrative action against
Countrywide alleging discriminatory lending practices.
(SFC, 6/26/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 1, Nicholas T. Sheley
(28) was arrested in Granite City, Ill., following a manhunt that
extended into Missouri. The ex-convict was suspected in eight recent
grisly slayings. He was suspected of killing, among others, a
93-year-old man, a toddler and a couple whose blood-soaked dogs were
found roaming a motel parking lot.
(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 7/11/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 5, The Illinois attorney
general's office said that Bank of America was modifying loans for
customers in 11 states.
(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 15, In Illinois a medical
helicopter crashed just before midnight and killed a desperately ill
1-year-old girl and three crew members when the aircraft clipped a
radio structure's wire and went down in a suburban Chicago field.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Dec 9, Federal authorities
arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (51) on charges that he brazenly
conspired to sell or trade the US Senate seat left vacant by
President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Blagojevich was
released after paying a $4,500 bond.
(AP, 12/9/08)(SFC, 12/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 30, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich named former state Attorney General Roland Burris (71) to
replace Barack Obama as state senator. The surprise move put opponents
in the uncomfortable position of trying to block Burris from becoming
the Senate’s only black member.
(SFC, 12/31/08, p.A3)
2009 Jan 5, In Illinois Steven L.
Good (52), chief executive of Sheldon Good & Co, one of the
nation’s largest real estate auction firms, was found dead of an
apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a forest outside Chicago. In
2003 he authored “Churches, Jails and Gold Mines… Mega-Deals from a
Real Estate Maverick.”
(WSJ, 1/7/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 6, Roland Burris of
Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama's appointed successor, was
turned away when he appeared at the US Capitol to take his in the
convening of the 111th Congress.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 9, The Illinois House
voted to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an unprecedented step in state
history.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 12, The US Senate said it
will seat Roland Burris, the junior senator from Illinois.
(SFC, 1/12/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 15, Roland Burris was
sworn in as junior senator from Illinois.
(SFC, 1/16/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 26, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich skipped the start of his impeachment trial preferring to
make his case on national TV.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 26, Caterpillar Inc
announced it would cut nearly 20,000 jobs and warned of a tough year
ahead as a downturn that began in the United States metastasized into a
full-blown global recession, gutting orders for earth-moving equipment.
At least 1,500 of the lost jobs were in greater Peoria, Ill.
(Reuters, 1/26/09)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.37)
2009 Jan 29, In Illinois Pat Quinn
(60), the Democrat Lt. Gov., became governor after the state Senate
voted 59-0 to convict Rod Blagojevich (52) of abuse of power.
(AP, 1/30/09)(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 8, In Illinois a broken
holding tank at a Caterpillar plant near Joliet spilled some 65,000
gallons of oil sludge and contaminated a 30-mile section of the Des
Plaines River.
(SFC, 2/9/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 9, The US postal service
released 4 new 42-cent stamps in Springfield, Ill., highlighting the
personal history of Abraham Lincoln.
(SFC, 2/9/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 15, Illinois Republicans
called for the resignation of Democratic Sen. Roland Burris following
reports of contradicting statements regarding conversations with close
associates of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The next day Burris admitted
that he tried to raise money for Gov. Blagojevich before being
appointed to the US Senate.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.A5)(WSJ, 2/17/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 8, In Illinois Pastor
Fred Winters was shot and killed during his Sunday sermon at First
Baptist Church in Maryville. He had deflected the first of Terry Joe
Sedlacek’s four rounds with a Bible, sending a confetti-like spray of
paper into the air in a horrifying scene that congregants initially
thought was a skit. Churchgoers wrestled Sedlacek (27) to the ground as
he waved a knife, slashing himself and two other people.
(AP, 3/9/09)(SFC, 3/9/09, p.A4)
2009 Mar 29, In Illinois Duncan
Connolly (9) and his brother Jack (7), missing since March 8 after
visiting with their father, were found dead in his car. The body of
their father, Michael Connolly, was found nearby.
(SFC, 3/31/09,
p.A6)(www.amw.com/missing_children/recovered.cfm?id=64030)
2009 Apr 2, A federal grand jury
issued a 75-page indictment charging former Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich with racketeering, extortion and fraud.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 30, In Illinois Ali
al-Marri (43) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide
material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A
second charge of providing material support or resources to a foreign
terrorist organization was dropped. His case had sparked a legal debate
over whether the government can hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.
The Qatar native faced up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at
his July 30 sentencing.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 5, In Columbia, Illinois,
Sheri Coleman (31) and her two sons, Garett (11) and Gavin (9) were
found strangled to death. Husband and father Chris Coleman (32) was
charged with three counts of first-degree murder, but later pleaded not
guilty.
(AP, 5/20/09)
2009 May 8, In the Midwest a wave
of storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in
Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. 5 people were left dead.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 Jun 6, In East St. Louis,
Ill., the 34-acre Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park opened. It was named
after Malcolm W. Martin (d.2004 at 91), the lawyer who formed a
non-profit group in 1968 to raise money to protect the tract from
developers.
(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.A10)
2009 Jun 19, In Illinois tank cars
loaded with thousands of gallons of highly flammable ethanol exploded
in flames as a freight train derailed in Rockford, killing Zoila Tellez
(41) and forcing evacuations of hundreds of nearby homes.
(AP, 6/20/09)(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.A9)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Illinois