Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 13, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 67 degrees (1975)
- Low temperature: Minus 13 degrees (1903)
- Precipitation: 1.14 inches (1928)
- Snowfall: 6 inches (2000)
1927: Mayor William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson dedicated Chicago Municipal (later Midway) Airport.
“We like to boast that we have a train coming into Chicago every sixty seconds,” Thompson told the crowd. “We will certainly be able to boast when we have an airplane arriving every sixty seconds.”
1960: After returning from an expedition to the Himalayas financed by World Book Encyclopedia under the leadership of Sir Edmund Hillary, Lincoln Park Zoo Director R. Marlon Perkins said the yeti — otherwise known as the abominable snowman — is “only a legend.”
Perkins had hoped, if the abominable snowman did exist, to bring back a specimen for the zoo. A Sherpa guide claimed to have the scalp from a female yeti his ancestors got drunk then killed, but upon examination by scientists from the Field Museum thought it might be man-made. “It proved to be from the hide of an antelope,” Perkins said.
1970: The Chicago Bears played their last game at Wrigley Field. The NFL had pressured the Bears to move because seating capacity was less than 50,000 — one of the parameters the league created after the AFL-NFL merger — and because the stadium lacked lights.
From Wrigley Field to Soldier Field: Where the Chicago Bears have played home games since 1921
Jack Concannon had his best game, throwing four touchdown passes and scoring a fifth, in a 35-17 win over the Green Bay Packers.
1985: Chicago Mayor Harold Washington met with actors Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines, who were filming “Running Scared” in the city.
1995: Ald. Anthony Laurino, who bragged of learning politics at the knees of “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, was indicted
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on charges that he hired dozens of friends, relatives and cronies for no-work city jobs — at a cost to the taxpayers of nearly $1.5 million in pay and health benefits. A month later, he was further accused of forcing the wife of a close friend to kick back about $77,000 — or half of her pay — from a ghost-payrolling job.While Laurino denied the charges, several members of his family were convicted, including his wife and a daughter, Marie D’Amico. The indictments came a year after he stepped down as alderman — with his daughter taking over his council seat — and Laurino’s trial was indefinitely postponed in 1996 because of his ill health. He became alderman in 1965 and his political career on the City Council spanned nearly three decades. He died in 1999.
2015: Chicago Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane’s streak of scoring a point in 26 consecutive games — which set a franchise record — ended.
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