Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 12, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Front page flashback: Feb. 13, 1963
1963: A Chicago-bound Northwest Orient Airlines jet crashed in the Florida Everglades shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport. The Boeing 720 jet had flown into “rain squalls and turbulent skies,” which “cut off radar observation within minutes after takeoff,” the Tribune reported. All 43 people aboard — including 20 passengers from the Chicago area — died.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 62 degrees (1984)
- Low temperature: Minus 17 degrees (1899)
- Precipitation: 1.13 inches (1884)
- Snowfall: 7.9 inches (1894)
Biden grants national monument status to site of 1908 Springfield race riot
1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in New York, partially in response to race riots in Springfield during the previous year in which seven people died.
1917: “The Gumps,” for decades one of the most popular comic strips, was introduced in the Tribune.
1955: At least 29 men died after a fire swept through the Barton Hotel at 644-648 Madison St. Most were trapped inside their cagelike rooms at the Skid Row hotel, which were rented for 60 to 85 cents per night.
1969: Controversial University of Chicago sociology professor Marlene Dixon — who inspired a more than two-week sit-in by students at the school’s administration building (Edward H. Levi Hall) after her contract was not renewed — announced her resignation.
Dixon, who previously appeared on local talk shows to discuss “convention freak-out” and “student unrest”, came under fire for joining students who protested the Vietnam War during the inauguration of incoming president Edward H. Levi in 1968.
In announcing her decision to reject a one-year contract extended by university officials, Dixon said, “Should I benefit from the students’ sacrifice? This I cannot do.”
Dixon said that discrimination against women and radicals, which students said played a role in the university’s original decision not to rehire her, “simply cannot be factually demonstrated … but issues like that question the very integrity of this university.”
According to the University of Chicago, 42 students who participated in the sit-in were expelled and 81 students were suspended.
1972: “The world’s largest atom smasher” passed its first major test at the National Accelerator Laboratory (now Fermilab) in Batavia, the Tribune reported, “by successfully accelerating a beam of protons to 100 billion electron volts.”
2016: Chicago’s Marina City was granted landmark status by the City Council.
“The designation, which will allow the city’s landmarks commission to review proposed changes to Marina City, nonetheless has a broader importance because it sets a precedent for putting a major midcentury modernist skyscraper on the protected list,” Tribune critic Blair Kamin wrote.
2017: Chicago’s Chance the Rapper, aka Chancelor Bennett, won three Grammy awards for best new artist, rap album and rap performance (“No Problem”). The 23-year-old artist beat out Kanye West and Drake for best rap album for “Coloring Book.”
Though recordings that were not commercially sold were previously banned from Grammy consideration, the academy relaxed its rules. This paved the way for Chance’s victories.
2020: Chicago-based Peapod — the grocery delivery pioneer — announced it was ceasing operations in the Midwest. Peapod, founded in Evanston in 1989, was purchased by Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch parent of Food Lion, Stop and Shop and Giant, in 2000.
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