Who has influence in Chicago politics? That's always worth talking about. Here's how the jargon to describe it suddenly shifted in the middle of the 20th century. Read more
As World War II swelled Chicago's black population, photographers Edwin Rosskam and Russell Lee—with the help of author Richard Wright—documented the changing city. Read more
One of the 20th century's legendary meteorologists, Ted Fujita, revolutionized the study of tornadoes, but for most of his life never got to see one. So he made his own. Read more
Thirty years after becoming Chicago's first black mayor, here's a look at the city Harold Washington took over, and how it had changed by the time he suddenly left. Read more
Chicago entered the modern era by reversing nature to rid the city of filth. After seven generations of epic, semi-effective engineering, the future may require a return to the city's swampy self. Read more
For a couple years in the 1950s, the hamburgers many Chicagoans consumed were as much horse as cow—up to 40 percent. The Syndicate worked a rich arbitrage of cultural taboos, at least until they got caught and horse meat dominated the headlines for a year. Read more
He fled communist Yugoslavia by crawling down a drainpipe, married a Greek princess, and led a life of declining geopolitical intrigue that frequently brought him to Chicago. Read more
From horse-drawn cars to compressed-air motors to battery powered streetcars to propane buses: what public transportation in Chicago looked like and how it got around, from 1857-1970. Read more
In response to a South Side labor protest, the mayor off-handedly mentioned the history of racial segregation in the "building trades." It's a long and ugly one, and even though private-sector unions have worked for years to undo the damage, we're still living with it. Read more
