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1886: Haymarket Riot
Wealthy
industrialists funded amazing Chicago arts institutions, but their
workers toiled long hours in abominable conditions. In May 1886, a labor
protest ended in an explosion at Haymarket Square that killed eight
policemen and two bystanders. Eight anarchists were convicted of murder,
though three were later pardoned for lack of evidence. -
1900: Reversal of the Chicago River
With
sewage flowing downriver to Lake Michigan, the source of the city’s
drinking water, thousands of Chicagoans were dying from the
contamination. To solve the problem, engineers created a canal that
forced the river to flow away from the lake: an extraordinary feat of
modern engineering. -
1919: Chicago Black Sox Scandal
The
Chicago White Sox was a winning baseball team but poorly paid, so
players sometimes fixed games, pocketing money from gamblers. After a
group of players conspired to lose the 1919 World Series, eight of them
were indicted, acquitted for insufficient evidence, but banned for life
from baseball – and forever nicknamed the “Black Sox.”
The Chicago White Sox in 1919
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1929: Valentine’s Day Massacre
This
brutal murder of seven of Al Capone’s rival gangsters is one of
history’s most notorious massacres. Capone set up a sting that sent
George “Bugsy” Moran’s main men to a nearby garage. There, Capone’s
henchmen, dressed as police officers, lined them up and riddled them
with bullets. Seven bushes now mark the spot (at Clark Street and
Dickens Avenue).
Al Capone
