Meet Ellis Chesbrough, Chicago’s first city engineer and designer of the water delivery system we still use today. WTTW News Explains how water cribs work out on Lake Michigan.
Chicago History
An invasive mussel is destroying shipwrecks deep in the depths of the Great Lakes, forcing archeologists and amateur historians into a race against time to find as many sites as they can before the region loses any physical trace of its centuries-long maritime history.
You can rag on our region for Crock Pot meals loaded with cream of mushroom soup, or salads mostly made of marshmallows and Cool Whip. But one Chicago chef says the culinary depth and national influence the Midwest has had on America’s taste is underestimated.
The Folded Map action kit aims to help Chicagoans explore the effects of segregation in the city and how it continues to perpetuate racial inequities.
The Eastland Disaster, often overlooked in history, occurred in 1915 when a passenger ship docked at the Clark Street Bridge tipped over in the Chicago River, leading to the deaths of 844 people.
Biden will sign a proclamation on Tuesday to create the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi, according to the official.
A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson confirmed the long-time civil rights leader would be retiring from the organization.
No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took drugs laced with cyanide. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.”
Heat preparedness has generally improved over the years. Chicago, for example, has expanded its emergency text and email notification system and identified its most vulnerable residents for outreach.
In the pantheon of Chicago disc jockeys, Dick Biondi was a superstar. In a 2003 appearance on “Chicago Tonight,” he recounts his meeting with The Beatles.
Newton Minow may have done more to improve the quality of television in the United States than any other person. “I saw using this medium certainly for entertainment, but also for education in the large sense, for stimulation, for ... I would hope, inspiration,” he said.
Post-Civil War Dixon, 103 miles west of Chicago, was a growing city split by the formidable Rock River. On May 4, 1873, the 4-year-old bridge twisted, splintered and rolled over. Forty-six people perished, many immured by the unrelenting gridiron just below the water’s surface.
A band of young women — most in their 20s, some in college, some married with children — banded together in Chicago to create an underground abortion network. The group was officially created in 1969 as the “Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation.”
Many of the flags waving from civic buildings aren’t just representing Chicago, they’re made in the city’s South Shore neighborhood, by Chicago residents, who work for a company known as W.G.N.
Saturday marks the 186th anniversary of Chicago’s founding as a city. As the candles on its birthday cake have grown with the passing years, so too have Chicago’s borders. Here’s a look at how a once small-but-mighty city gobbled up surrounding land.
The curators, both working on the Art Institute of Chicago’s first show dedicated to Salvador Dalí, were researching his painting “Visions of Eternity,” which was dated to 1936 and had been held in the museum since the late 1980s. But red flags were mounting.