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He is remembered as one of the nation’s most notorious gangsters, but Al Capone’s career as head of Chicago organized crime came to a sudden and ignominious end after only six years.
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What's the connection between Red Stripe Beer from Jamaica and Red Stripe Beer from Galena, Illinois? It's an Illinois history mystery.
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In the 1930s, Wheaton, Illinois, native Pearl Kendrick created a vaccine that has saved millions of lives and is still standard for American children today.
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During World War II, the United States Army built sprawling hospital complexes across the country to treat wounded soldiers. One of the largest was built in Galesburg, Illinois.
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When a deadly polio outbreak hit Chicago in 1937, the city shuttered its schools. But kids didn’t get a free pass. They took part in a remote learning experiment with the best technology available: the radio.
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In 1846, an Illinois militia laid siege to Nauvoo, one of the state’s largest cities. Their goal? Drive out the last members of the Mormon Church.
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Illinois has a state fossil, the Tully Monster, a strange sea creature that swam over Illinois 300 million years ago.
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In the early 1900s, the city of West Chicago celebrated its history as the site of a historic Lincoln-Douglas debate. The only problem? The debate never happened.
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Sooooouuuuuuullllllllll Train! Before it became one of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history, before it propelled up-and-coming Black artists to worldwide fame, "Soul Train" debuted as a small, local dance show in Chicago.
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Nazi spy or hapless traveler? Chicago’s Herbert Hans Haupt and his conspirators set off a national sensation when they were rounded up as part of a Nazi spy ring.