91 Facts About Chicago

Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles.

Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation.

Chicago is home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city's South Side.

Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy, food, dance, including modern dance and jazz troupes and the Joffrey Ballet, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music including house music.

Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.

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Name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps".

In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville.

The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.

The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.

Chicago defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.

The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was Dr John H Rauch, M D Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866.

In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park.

Chicago was the location of the infamous St Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.

Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization.

The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.

Chicago was a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups.

Chicago's was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.

Chicago was re-elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after.

Chicago's accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways.

Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan.

The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds.

The lake provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks.

Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south.

In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States.

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Destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation.

Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture.

Chicago is a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture.

Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust.

Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.

Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States.

Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.

Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Since the 20th century Chicago has been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.

In 2007, Chicago was named the fourth-most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index.

In 2009 Chicago placed ninth on the UBS list of the world's richest cities.

Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.

Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States.

Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.

For six consecutive years since 2013, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.

Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric.

Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, Quaker Oats, and US Foods.

Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's.

Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907.

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Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks.

The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.

Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place.

Chicago contains a number of large, outdoor works by well-known artists.

The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U S Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.

Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots.

Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism.

The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations.

Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.

At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature.

Additionally, Chicago is one of the eight cities in the United States to have won championships in the four major professional leagues and, along with Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, is one of five cities to have won soccer championships as well.

Chicago has the third most franchises in the four major North American sports leagues with five, behind the New York and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas, and have six top-level professional sports clubs when including Chicago Fire FC of Major League Soccer.

Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901.

The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, started out in the city, but is known as the Arizona Cardinals.

Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer and plays at Soldier Field.

Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association.

Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place.

Chicago has entered into esports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL.

At the Call of Duty League's Launch Week games in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Chicago Huntsmen went on to beat both the Dallas Empire and Optic Gaming Los Angeles.

When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden".

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Wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts, including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.

Government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches.

For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992.

The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office.

From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M Daley, the son of Richard J Daley.

Chicago had more homicides than any other city in 2015 in total but not on per capita basis, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In 2012, Chicago ranked 21st in the United States in numbers of homicides per person, and in the first half of 2013 there was a significant drop per-person, in all categories of violent crime, including homicide.

Chicago ended 2013 with 415 murders, the lowest number of murders since 1965, and overall crime rates dropped by 16 percent.

Chicago began experiencing a massive surge in carjackings after 2019, and at least 1, 415 such crimes took place in the city in 2020.

Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools, and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge.

Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities.

William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901.

Chicago has been the home of several prominent talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Steve Harvey Show, The Rosie Show, The Jerry Springer Show, The Phil Donahue Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and more.

Chicago has been the setting of a number of television shows, including the situation comedies Perfect Strangers and its spinoff Family Matters, Married.

Chicago has five 50, 000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP.

Chicago is home to a number of national radio shows, including Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.

Richard Giraldi of the Chicago Sun-Times remarked on the significance of the label and wrote, "As important as Chess Records was to blues and soul music, Chicago's Wax Trax imprint was just as significant to the punk rock, new wave and industrial genres.

Chicago is featured in a few video games, including Watch Dogs and Midtown Madness, a real-life, car-driving simulation game.

Chicago is home to NetherRealm Studios, the developers of the Mortal Kombat series.

Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States.

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City of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car.

Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation.

In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15.

Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations, on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side.

The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.

Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center.