Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 16, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Flashback: July 16, 2009
2009: Sears Tower officially was renamed Willis Tower — but does anyone really call it that?
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 100 degrees (1887)
- Low temperature: 49 degrees (1945)
- Precipitation: 2.48 inches (1950)
- Snowfall: None
1887: Chicago recorded its first 100-degree day. When the Tribune reported on “how fashionable people solve the hot weather problem,” suggestions included reading a book indoors, going on a canoe excursion or leaving town for a cooler locale.
Here are Chicago’s hottest days — with temperatures of 100 degrees or higher — on record
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1947: In one of the most furious slugfests in ring history, champion Tony Zale — “Man of Steel” from Gary — lost the only one of his three middleweight title fights against Rocky Graziano. Zale lost the title he had held since 1940 on a sixth-round TKO in 100-plus-degree heat in Chicago Stadium. Zale later avenged the loss and regained the title.
1971: Princess Grace of Monaco spoke on “Why Mothers Should Breastfeed Their Babies” during a conference in Chicago for the La Leche League International at the LaSalle Hotel. The former Hollywood star joined the league in 1965, and said she breastfed all three of her children.
2004: Millennium Park officially opened. Former Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin called the project “the best thing former Mayor Richard M. Daley ever did.”
With its glistening Cloud Gate sculpture nicknamed The Bean (by the Indian-born, London-based artist Anish Kapoor) and raucous Crown Fountain (by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa), the oasislike Lurie Garden and festive Pritzker Pavilion (by Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry), the $490 million, 24.5-acre postindustrial playground, “is the face Chicago wants to show the world, a dazzling antidote to the gun violence wracking city neighborhoods,” Kamin wrote in 2014.
The Millennium Park that opened in 2004, four years behind schedule, was a supercharged version of the bland, Beaux-Arts proposal from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill that Daley initially unveiled.
2005: Real Madrid and David Beckham made their Soldier Field debut against Mexico’s Chivas Guadalajara. The game was scoreless until the 73rd minute when Francisco Palencia banged one in for 10-time Mexican division champion Chivas.
Then in the 77th minute Beckham bent the ball on a free kick to Álvaro Mejía, who headed it into the Chivas goal to tie the score. Two more late goals got Real Madrid the win. Beckham gave one lucky local family the jersey off his back.
2019: After eluding capture for a week in the Humboldt Park lagoon, a 5-foot-long alligator nicknamed “Chance the Snapper” appeared for a news conference with its trapper Frank Robb. The gator was relocated to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida.
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