On This Day in Chicago History

Join John R. Schmidt on a day-by-day look at some of Chicago's most fascinating lesser-known events. Think you know Chicago? If you are thinking of Al Capone, the L, the Cubs, Barack Obama or the Great Fire of 1871, then you are remembering the highlights from the tour bus. Here's the rest of the story, day by day. Chicago opened the first blood bank, invented the vacuum cleaner and sent a bowling ball around the world. One high school football game drew 120,000 people. Chicagoans fought nineteen years over the name of a street. For fifty years, they saved a gallows for an escaped killer. And those are just some of the stories...

John R. Schmidt is a fifth-generation Chicagoan with a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago and senior writer at Bowlers Journal, where he has over 300 articles to his credit. He is a regular on-air contributor at radio station WBEZ and the proprietor of the blog Chicago History Today.