November 5 Illinois History Minute

It’s November 7th, the day in 1837 that abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy was shot and killed during an attack on the warehouse holding his printing press in the Mississippi River town of Alton. Lovejoy published his paper, the Observer, in the St. Louis area, where support for slavery was high.

Former Illinois governor George Ryan reported to prison on this day in 2007 to serve a six-and-a-half-year sentence for a federal corruption conviction. Ryan was charged with steering state contracts and campaign funds to friends and relatives and trying to block the investigation of corruption during his time as secretary of state.

Comedian Judy Tenuta was born in Oak Park on this day in 1949. The self-styled Love Goddess first honed her observational and insult humor while opening for other comedians in Chicago comedy clubs.