August 22 Illinois History Minute

It’s August 22nd, and on this day in 1858, people in Ottawa Illinois were still talking about the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, held the day before.  An estimated 12-thousand people turned out to hear U-S Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate the future of slavery in the new western territories. Douglas said voters of each territory should decide whether to permit slavery. Lincoln said slavery was a “monstrous injustice” that should not be expanded. But he stopped short of demanding its complete elimination.

Author Ray Bradbury, the author of “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Martian Chronicles” was born on this day in 1920 in Waukegan. Bradbury wrote nostalgically about the Waukegan of his childhood in such novels as “Dandelion Wine” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, where he renamed it Green Town.