Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 19, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Front page flashback: Feb. 19, 1945
1945: U.S. Marines landed at Iwo Jima, an island covered in volcanic ash — about 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide at its broadest — which sat roughly 600 miles east of Japan’s main islands. “Sulfur Island” had been made into a giant fortress, with deep caves and tunnels to underground bunkers and pillboxes, and more than 22,000 well-entrenched Japanese soldiers ready to defend it. The island was important for its airfields, from which Japanese fighter planes could attack U.S. B-29 Superfortresses heading to Japan.
Commentary: Flags over Iwo Jima: ‘The most beautiful scene in all the blue Pacific …’
That was the start of a monthlong battle that became one of the bloodiest in World War II. By the time it ended, 5,931 Americans had been killed. All but 3,000 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders in the fortified caves were dead. An additional 20,000 men on both sides were maimed, crippled or otherwise wounded.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 69 degrees (2017)
- Low temperature: Minus 8 degrees (2015)
- Precipitation: 0.95 inches (1994)
- Snowfall: 4.8 inches (1908)
1994: American speedskater Bonnie Blair received the fourth Olympic gold medal of her career after she won the 500-meter race in Lillehammer, Norway.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Our local Winter Olympians of Games past
The Champaign native and bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor are the most decorated U.S. women in Winter Olympics history. Blair competed in four Olympics (1984, 1988, 1992, 1994) and won a record five gold medals, plus one bronze.
Blair retired from competition in 1995.
2016: A Chicago Tribune archival photo of a young man being arrested in 1963 at a South Side protest shows U.S. senator from Vermont and then-Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, his campaign confirmed, bolstering the candidate’s narrative about his civil rights activism.
The black-and-white photo shows a 21-year-old Sanders, then a University of Chicago student, being taken by Chicago police toward a police wagon. An acetate negative of the photo was found in the Tribune’s archives, said Marianne Mather, a Chicago Tribune photo editor.
“Bernie identified it himself,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the campaign, adding that Sanders looked at a digital image of the photo. “He looked at it — he actually has his student ID from the University of Chicago in his wallet — and he said, ‘Yes, that indeed is (me).’” Sanders was traveling near Reno, Nevada, on the eve of the state’s Democratic presidential caucuses.
2024: Connor Bedard’s power-play goal in the third period against the Carolina Hurricanes came when Tyler Johnson dished from below the goal line to Philipp Kurashev, who whirled around in the crease on a backhand pass to Bedard. Bedard had a wide-open net and flicked in just the second power-play goal of his career.
Combined with two assists on the night, Bedard’s three points gave him his eighth multipoint game, passing Eddie Olczyk for the most by an 18-year-old in franchise history, according to NHL Stats.
Connor Bedard’s rookie season: Tracking the goals of the Chicago Blackhawks’ No. 1 pick
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