Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 3, 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: 71 degrees (1970)
- Low temperature: Minus 5 degrees (1940)
- Precipitation: 1.12 inches (1873)
- Snowfall: 4 inches (1893)
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1818: Illinois entered the Union as the 21st state.
1919: Architecture firm Holabird & Roche was chosen to design a U-shaped stadium as a memorial to U.S. soldiers who died in the war. It later was named Soldier Field.
Flashback: If a football squad wanted bragging rights in Chicago, the Prep Bowl was what mattered
1927: The first Prep Bowl, which the Tribune dubbed “the football championships of all the Chicago high schools,” took place at Soldier Field before 50,000 fans. “Mount Carmel froze out Schurz in the first interleague game ever staged,” the Tribune wrote.
1943: Pizzeria Uno opened to little fanfare. The restaurant at Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue was not an overnight success. In the early days, bartenders distributed free sample slices to introduce customers to the establishment’s now well-known food.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Chicago-style pizza may owe its existence to a bad enchilada
The restaurant opened in 1943 as The Pizzeria, became Pizzeria Riccardo soon afterward, and settled in as Pizzeria Uno in 1955, when partners Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo opened Pizzeria Due in another mansion at Wabash and Ontario Street. Pizzeria Due’s manager was Luciano “Lou” Malnati.
1957: Seven-year-old Maria Ridulph was playing in front of her Sycamore home when she accepted a piggyback ride from a stranger named Johnny. Five months later, a couple hunting for mushrooms found her body. She was stuffed under a tree trunk in a forest about 100 miles from her home.
Former Washington state police Officer Jack McCullough was convicted in DeKalb County in 2012 of murder, infant abduction and kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison. A new prosecutor in DeKalb County found flaws in the case, determined McCullough’s alibi was solid and concluded that McCullough couldn’t have committed the crime. He asked another judge to throw out the conviction and all charges were dismissed. McCullough sued officers in Illinois and Seattle over allegations of “pervasive misconduct.”
1967: The 20th Century Limited — once called “the greatest train in the world” — left Chicago’s LaSalle Station for New York on its final run.
In the 1930s, Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur produced the Broadway play, “The 20th Century Limited,” and later Alfred Hitchcock filmed “North by Northwest” on the train. Lucius Beebe made the train the subject of a book, and Norman Rockwell once painted its diner for a Saturday Evening Post cover.
2009: Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Patrick Kane signed contract extensions with the Chicago Blackhawks.
The trio won the Stanley Cup with the Hawks in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
2018: The Chicago Bulls fired coach Fred Hoiberg, who compiled a 115-155 record with one first-round playoff exit.
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