50 Moments That Shaped Chicago 1970–2020
A lot has happened since Chicago published its first issue 50 years ago this month. Mayors have toppled the status quo, championships have been won and lost (and won again), a blizzard paralyzed the city, protests rocked it, a pandemic galvanized it. In honor of our anniversary, here’s our ranking of the most significant events of the last half century.
1
April 12, 1983
Harold Washington is Elected Mayor
Five months after Washington’s historic victory, the magazine devoted its October 1983 cover story to his tumultuous early days in office, with political reporter David Moberg assessing the mayor’s bold attempts at sweeping away the old patronage system.
2
June 19, 1984
The Bulls Draft Michael Jordan
By the time he made our February 1989 cover, Jordan, then in his fifth season, was already, in the words of writer Ted Cox, “the most marketable player in the sport.” But a championship still eluded him.
3
March 20, 2020
Governor J.B. Pritzker Issues a Statewide Stay-at Home Order
4
November 24, 2015
The Chicago Police Department Releases Video of Laquan McDonald’s Killing
5
January 26, 1986
The Bears Win the Super Bowl
6
January 15, 1990
Oprah Winfrey Opens Harpo Studios
Eighteen years after Winfrey founded her studio, her empire had grown to include books, magazines, satellite radio, and a soon-to-launch cable network. She had already left Chicago for California when Marcia Froelke Coburn wrote this December 2008 appraisal
7
November 2, 2016
The Cubs Win the World Series
8
July 16, 2004
Millennium Park Opens
9
May 30, 2020
Unrest Grips Downtown After the Killing of George Floyd
10
November 4, 2008
Barack Obama Delivers Grant Park Victory Speech
Obama was less than two years removed from his breakout Democratic convention speech — and a little over a year into his U.S. senatorial term — when Chicago put him on the March 2006 cover along with a prescient question. In the story by James L. Merriner, Obama pooh-poohed such speculation.
11
December 15, 1970
Illinois Voters Guarantee Pension Benefits
12
December 20, 1976
Mayor Richard J. Daley dies
13
May 6, 2015
The City Council Approves Reparations for Jon Burge Torture Victims
14
July 12–16, 1995
A Deadly Heat Wave Descends on the City
For our July 2015 oral history, Mike Thomas interviewed first responders, meteorologists, ER doctors, and, among others, the mother of one of the tragedy’s youngest victims, a 3-year-old who’d been left in a car by a daycare worker.
15
October 13, 1992
Dantrell Davis is Murdered
16
February 1971
John Belushi Makes his Second City Debut
How unknown was Belushi when he first started performing at the then-11-year-old improv house? Our events listing from November 1971 misspelled his name.
17
May 3, 1973
The Sears Tower is Completed
The skyscraper was still under construction in April 1972, when the magazine — known then as the Chicago Guide — wrote about fears the 1,450-foot tower might interfere with signals broadcast from the nearby Hancock building. (The worries proved unfounded.)
18
August 17, 1987
Charlie Trotter’s Opens
19
December 9, 2008
Rod Blagojevich is Arrested
20
March 30, 2011
The Last Cabrini-Green Tower is Demolished
21
January 13–14, 1979
A Massive Blizzard Paralyzes the City
22
August 5, 1983
Operation Greylord is Revealed
23
April 3, 1979
Jane Byrne is Elected Mayor
At the dawn of the ’80s, what better way to convey “out with the old, in with the new” than a mash-up of the late mayor Daley and the new mayor Byrne on this January 1980 cover?
24
December 4, 2008
The City Council Ratifies the Parking Meter Deal
25
April 3, 1973
Motorola Unveils the First Portable Cellphone
26
October 4–6, 1979
Pope John Paul II Visits Chicago
27
July 30, 1971
The Union Stock Yards Close
28
January 31, 1984
PBS Airs Steppenwolf’s True West
29
December 21, 1978
John Wayne Gacy is Arrested
30
May 25, 2010
Jeanne Gang’s Aqua Tower is Completed
31
September 29–October 5, 1982
Tylenol Poisonings Spark Panic
Thirty years had passed when, in October 2012, Chicago published a reconstruction of the events, told in the words of investigators, doctors, and next of kin. The first to perish was a 12-year-old Schaumburg student named Mary Kellerman. Her father remembered the horrific day.
32
October 26, 2005
The White Sox Win the World Series
33
August 25, 1976
The Digging of the Deep Tunnel Begins
34
April 23, 1990
Protesters Take Over Downtown for the National AIDS Action For Healthcare
In the May 2020 issue, to mark the protest’s 30th anniversary, Rebecca Makkai interviewed 10 people who were there. One of them, Bill McMillan, recalled how he sneaked onto a balcony of the County Building.
35
April 2, 2019
Lori Lightfoot is Elected Mayor
For the June/July 2019 cover story, Edward McClelland traced the unlikely career trajectory and political fortunes of the Ohio-born daughter of a janitor. Lightfoot described to McClelland the impression the city made on her when she first visited as a college student in the 1980s.
36
September 4, 1975
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert Make Their TV Debut
37
August 8, 1988
Wrigley Field Hosts its First Night Game
38
March 1977
Frankie Knuckles Makes his Debut at The Warehouse
Our August 2018 homage to house music featured a ranking of the top 20 local tracks of all time, an ode to Frankie Knuckles by Warehouse founder Robert Williams, and firsthand remembrances, like this one from DJ Ron Trent.
39
June 9, 2010
The Blackhawks Win the Stanley Cup
40
November 29, 2018
The FBI Raids Alderman Ed Burke’s Offices
Jonathan Eig’s June 1997 feature about an earlier Burke-related scandal — one involving alleged city payroll shenanigans — gave readers a clear-eyed portrait of the alderman, and of the expansive ward operation that was the foundation of his political power.
41
February 24, 2015
Jesús “Chuy” García Forces Rahm Emanuel into a Mayoral Runoff
42
May 25, 1979
American Airlines Flight 191 Crashes
43
June 4, 1998
Lake Shore Drive Rerouting is Completed, Creating the Museum Campus
44
July 12, 1979
Steve Dahl Stages Disco Demolition Night
45
June 10, 1971
R.J. Grunts Opens
46
October 2, 1971
Soul Train Premieres Nationally
47
April 13, 1992
The Chicago River Floods the Loop
In July 1992, Dennis Rodkin chronicled the unhappy lot of the city’s acting transportation commissioner, who took the fall for the Loop flood.
48
November 17, 1995
Ira Glass’s Your Radio Playhouse Debuts on WBEZ
Ira Glass may be a national icon now, but he was a relatively unknown NPR correspondent when he gave his first-ever media interview to Marcia Froelke Coburn for the March 1995 issue. The conversation took place in Glass’s North Side apartment, where he was editing the early episodes of his soon-to-be-legendary show.
49
July 23–24, 2005
Lollapalooza Makes Chicago its Permanent Home
50
January 1, 1984
Sandra Cisneros Publishes The House on Mango Street
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