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 September 23rd. And more than a hundred-thousand people filled Chicago’s Soldier Field on this day in 1927 to watch the rematch between heavyweight boxers Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. This was the fabled “long count” fight, in which Dempsey’s delay in staying in a neutral corner gave Tunney five extra seconds to recover from a knockdown. Tunney went on to win the bout, ending Dempsey’s prizefighting career.
It’s September 22nd, the day in 1952 that the University of Illinois put its ILLIAC One computer online. The two-ton computer --- powerful for its time --- was the twin of the ORDVAC computer the U of I had built for the U-S Army. ILLIAC One was the first computer built and owned by an American educational institution.
It’s September 21st, and on this day in 1901, a University of Illinois freshman resorted to gunfire to ward off a hazing attack. E. Clyde Conard fired a gun when upperclassmen threatened to cut off his mustache at the campus Dining Hall. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
It’s September 21st, and on this day in 1901, a University of Illinois freshman resorted to gunfire to ward off a hazing attack. E. Clyde Conard fired a gun when upperclassmen threatened to cut off his mustache at the campus Dining Hall. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
It’s September 19th, marking the start in 1813 of the Peoria War, a month of fighting during the War of 1812, between U-S Army troops and Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribes living in the area of modern-day Peoria. The Potawatomi and Kickapoo defeat was one step in the U-S push to move native tribes out of Illinois.
It’s September 16th, and on this day in 1836, Free Frank McWorter platted the town of New Philadelphia in Pike County, becoming the first African-American to found a town in the United States. New Philadelphia was built on 80 acres in western Illinois that McWorter bought from the federal government for 800 dollars. The town had close to 160 inhabitants by the end of the Civil War. But after being bypassed by a railroad, New Philadelphia gradually reverted to farmland.
It’s September 15th, a day when some 1500 people turned out in the southern Illinois town of Jonesboro for the third debate between U-S Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. The two continued their arguments over whether to allow slavery in new territories. Douglas called Lincoln an abolitionist who opposed letting voters in each new state decide the slavery question for themselves. Lincoln said Douglas’ views ran counter to the founding fathers’ expectations that slavery was on the road to extinction.
It’s September 14th, the day in 1812 when Gallatin County was formed in what was then the Illinois Territory. Gallatin once covered a quarter of southern Illinois, although its territory shrank during the 19th century, and its population is now below five-thousand. It’s a county where slavery was once permitted. The first Illinois constitution made allowed the temporary use of enslaved labor at the salt works near the Gallatin county seat of Shawneetown.
It’s September 13th, the day that writer Sherwood Anderson was born in Ohio in 1876. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Anderson left behind a marriage and a business career and moved to Chicago to concentrate on writing. His first two novels were about men who move to Chicago to work out their problems. Anderson drew on his home state memories for his best-known work --- Winesburg Ohio, a sequence of short stories casting a critical gaze on small town life
It’s September 12th, and on this day in 2001, Americans were still trying to make sense of the September 11th attacks that used hijacked airplanes to attack the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and kill nearly three-thousand people, including nine from Illinois.
