November 18 Illinois History Minute

It’s November 18th, and attorney and journalist Megyn Kelly was born on this day in Champaign in 1970. Kelly was an attorney for several years, including in Chicago, before moving to TV as a journalist and talk show host.

In 2015, while moderating a presidential candidate’s debate on Fox News, she asked candidate Donald Trump about his conduct towards women.

“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals,” Kelly began. “Your Twitter account ---”

“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump broke in, naming the outspoken comedian and talk show host, to laughter and applause from the audience. Trump later questioned Kelly’s professionalism, and her moderating of the debate received a wide range of reactions in the media.

Champaign is also the birthplace of anthropologist Wilhelm Solheim, born this week in 1924. Solheim devised the Nusantao Hypothesis, one of several competing concepts of how humanity spread throughout the lands and islands of southeast Asia.