As WILL-AM celebrates a century of being on the air, we are sharing a minute-long snippet of Illinois history every weekday in 2022. This daily feature includes memorable people, places and events of that helped shape the prairie state.
Hosted by Illinois Public Media reporter Jim Meadows, the minute of Illinois History will air on WILL-AM/FM at 7:42 a.m. during Morning Edition and 5:32 p.m. during All Things Considered; as well as on WILL-AM in the 1 o'clock hour of Here & Now and at 8 o'clock in the evening. We've also made them available below for all of you history buffs!
It’s November 4th. And on this day in 1924, Illinois voters approved a 100 million dollar bond referendum to complete work on a network of paved roads for the growing number of automobiles in the state. It was the second highway bond referendum passed by the voters in six years.
It’s November 3rd, and engineer Nick Holonyak was born on this day in 1928 in the southern Illinois town of Ziegler, the son of a coalminer from what is now Ukraine.
The comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” made its first appearance in the Chicago Tribune on this day in 1924, three months after it premiered in the Tribune’s sister newspaper, the New York Daily News. Kankakee-born cartoonist Harold Grey created the strip, which later inspired the musical “Annie”.
It’s November First. And on this day in 1820, the Illinois General Assembly declared the south-central Illinois town of Vandalia to be the new state capital, replacing the old territorial capital of Kaskaskia. State lawmakers met in three different capital buildings in Vandalia, before moving to Springfield in 1839.
It’s October 31st, and a severe earthquake shook Illinois and seven other states on the morning of this day in 1895. The quake destroyed most of the chimneys and windows in the Mississippi River town of Cairo, and rattled windows up in Chicago, loud enough to wake people up.
It’s October 28th, a day in 1960 when two presidential campaigns came to central Illinois.
It’s October 27th, the day in 1832 when leaders of the Illinois Confederacy signed the treaty of Castor Hill. Under its terms, the five tribes remaining in the confederacy gave up their lands in Illinois and Missouri and moved to a reservation in eastern Kansas. There, they would be renamed the Peoria tribe, and be forced to move again, to Oklahoma in 1867.
It’s October 26. And on this day in 1881, Monmouth Illinois native Wyatt Earp took part in the Gunfight at the O-K Corral in Tombstone, a town in the Arizona Territory.
It’s October 25th, and on this day in 1940, the U-S Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Hansberry versus Lee.
It’s October 24th, and John F. Kennedy campaigned for president on the University of Illinois Quad on this day in 1960.
