May 20 Illinois History Minute

It’s May 20th, the day that U-S Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan the 2nd was born in Chicago in 1899. President Dwight Eisenhauer nominated Harlan to the high court in 1955. He was considered part of the Earl Warren Court’s conservative wing.

Comedian and musician George Gobel was born in Chicago on this day in 1919. Nicknamed Lonesome George, Gobel broke up Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in 1969.

Another TV landmark for this day --- WILL-TV’s Mid-American Gardener program went on the air for the first time in 1992 --- under the name of Illinois Gardener.