October 10 Illinois History Minute

It’s October Tenth, the final day of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The blaze destroyed more than 17-thousand buildings, leaving more than a hundred- thousand Chicago residents homeless.

The Chicago Cubs won baseball’s World Series on this day in 1908 for the second year in a row, winning both times over the Detroit Tigers.

Singer-songwriter John Prine was born on this day in 1946 in the Chicago suburb of Maywood. Prine got his start in Chicago’s folk music scene in the 1970s, with songs such as “Illegal Smile: (“And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile/ it don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while”).

And the wildlife documentary series “Nature” premiered on this day in 1982, on WILL-TV and other PBS stations.