June 9 Illinois History Minute

It’s June 9, and movies talked on this day in 1922 at the University of Illinois ---- when electrical engineering professor Joseph Tykociner showed off his new sound-on-film technology.

Tykociner was a Polish immigrant who had been working on his sound motion picture idea off and on for years. Hollywood would eventually use systems designed by others. But Tykociner was one of the first to actually demonstrate movies with a sound track on the film.

On this day in 1930, gangster Leo Vincent Brothers killed Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle during rush hour at a busy downtown train station. Seen at first as a martyred journalist, it eventually came out that Lingle’s murder was tied to his own involvement in racketeering.