Here's what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 26, according to Tribune archives.
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Weather records (from National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 61 degrees (2019)
- Low temperature: Minus 11 degrees (1983)
- Precipitation: 0.98 inch (1888)
- Snowfall: 5.6 inches (2009)
1908: Jack Johnson – who lived in Chicago and owned short-lived cafe in the Bronzeville area—became the first black heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson defeated Tommy Burns in a 14th-round decision in Sydney, Australia, “when police intervened to stop the lopsided fight,” the Tribune reported.
Five years later, a white jury in Chicago convicted Johnson traveling with his white girlfriend Lucille Cameron in violation of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transport of women across state lines for “immoral” purposes.
The case would later be seen as an unfortunate example of institutional racism in early 20th century America. He was sentenced to the year and day of prison in June 1913, but escaped to Canada with Cameron, whom he married while free on bail. He was a fugitive for seven years, traveling from Europe to Mexico, where he fought bulls and ran a bar called Main Event.
Johnson back to the United States in 1920 and surrendered. He served about a year in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, and was released in July 1921, returning a few days later to Chicago to 35,000 people cheering him on. Johnson died June 10, 1946, in a car accident in North Carolina after he ran out of a diner where he was asked to sit in the back section reserved for blacks. He is buried in Graceland Cemetery.
How many presidential pardons or sentence commutations have been granted to Illinois residents?
President Donald Trump Grants Rare Reward posthumous pardon Johnson on May 24, 2018, clearing Johnson's name more than 100 years after what many consider his racist condemnation. The “Rocky” star brought this case to Trump's attention. Sylvester Stallone.
1944: Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie” – “which tells problems of a worried mother to marry off his crippled daughter,” the Tribune previously reported, the film had its world premiere at the Civic Theater in Chicago. four character game starring Eddie Dowling, Laurette Taylor, Julie Haydon and Robert Stevenson. It was assumed that the cost of production would be US$40,000 (or approximately $728,000 in today's dollars).
On December 27, 1944, a review of the new play appeared in the thematic pages of the Tribune. The headline read: “Fragile Drama Keeps Theater in Difficult Situation.” The reviewer was Claudia Cassidy.
“Paradoxically, this is a dream at dusk and a tough little play that knows people and their character“,” Cassidy wrote in her review. “Captured in the shadows of human memory, it comes to life in theatrical terms of words, movement, lighting and music. If this is your play, like mine, it reaches out tentacles, tentatively at first, then engrossingly, and you fall under its spell.”
1969: Gunman hijacked United Airlines Flight 929, bound for Chicago, was a Boeing 727 with 32 people on board and sent him flying to Havana from New York. Pilot Axel D. Paulsen's orders were: “Send this ship to Cuba – no jokes.”
An airline spokesman said Paulsen told dispatch, “This guy has a gun, but he's pretty tough.”
The plane landed in Havana at 10:03 p.m. and then departed for Miami at 1:23 a.m. Chicago time. It was the 33rd American aircraft hijacked that year.
2018: Retirement Chicago Old. Daniel Solis signed a secret agreement federal prosecutors admitted to accepting bribes from developers in exchange for his help on zoning issues. The terms of the unprecedented deferred prosecution agreement that Solis signed that day with the U.S. Attorney's Office were not made public until April 2022. He became a government mole, going undercover to help federal investigators build a case against the 14th District Alda. Edward Burke and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Michael Madigan.
Solis entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, which agreed to drop bribery charges against him in 2025 if he continues to cooperate.
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