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Mayor Jane Byrne shakes hands with youngsters on April 2, 1981, outside a Cabrini-Green building where Bryne earlier waved to the crowd from the window of her fourth-floor apartment. (Jerry Tomaselli/Chicago Tribune)
Mayor Jane Byrne shakes hands with youngsters on April 2, 1981, outside a Cabrini-Green building where Bryne earlier waved to the crowd from the window of her fourth-floor apartment. (Jerry Tomaselli/Chicago Tribune)
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Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on March 31, according to the Tribune’s archives.

Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.

Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)

  • High temperature: 87 degrees (1981)
  • Low temperature: 12 degrees (1969)
  • Precipitation: 3.12 inches (1929)
  • Snowfall: 4.8 inches (1926)

1995: Sears shareholders approved a plan to spin off Allstate, then the country’s second-largest insurance company.

Sears timeline: Rise, fall and restructuring of a Chicago icon over 130 years

Launched in 1931 to provide mail-order car insurance, Northbrook-based Allstate Insurance Co. was founded as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears. In choosing a name for the new business, managers borrowed the trademark of a Sears product, Allstate Automobile Tire.

A bathroom before it gets painted prior to Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne moving into a Cabrini-Green apartment on March 24, 1981. (Ernie Cox Jr./Chicago Tribune)
A bathroom before it gets painted prior to Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne moving into a Cabrini-Green apartment on March 24, 1981. (Ernie Cox Jr./Chicago Tribune)

1981: At 8:30 p.m., a limousine carrying Mayor Jane Byrne from a $150-a-plate dinner in the Conrad Hilton hotel pulled up to the Cabrini-Green housing development. The mayor, her husband and bodyguards rushed quickly through the front door and, avoiding the elevator, walked up four flights of stairs to apartment #416.

Byrne moved into the Cabrini-Green apartment and stayed for 25 days.

Loyola Ramblers players Christian Negron, from left, Carson Shanks, Nick Dinaldi and Jake Baughman watch the final seconds of a 69-57 loss to the Michigan Wolverines in the Final Four semifinal game of the NCAA tournament at the Alamodome Saturday, March 31, 2018, in San Antonio. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Loyola Ramblers players Christian Negron, from left, Carson Shanks, Nick Dinaldi and Jake Baughman watch the final seconds of a 69-57 loss to the Michigan Wolverines in the Final Four semifinal game of the NCAA tournament at the Alamodome Saturday, March 31, 2018, in San Antonio. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

2018: No. 11 Loyola lost to Michigan 69-57 in the Final Four.

After Oregon State eliminated Loyola from the NCAA Tournament in 2021, Loyola coach Porter Moser left for Oklahoma.

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