Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on June 14, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Flashback: June 14,1965
1965: Gemini IV — crewed by James McDivitt and Edward White — included the first spacewalk by Americans.
Chicago welcomed the explorers and their wives with a parade along Michigan Avenue that included confetti and honorary citizen medallions. But one snafu irritated a sizable portion of the more than 3,000 students gathered at Arie Crown Theater to hear the astronauts discuss their mission.
McDivitt “made a tactical slip,” the Tribune reported, when he said there are enough qualified men to handle America’s space flights. He said the addition of women “could create a lot of problems.”
Vintage Chicago Tribune: How the city welcomed home American astronauts
“There are a lot of women in the program,” McDivitt said. “They don’t have to be astronettes. There are a lot of other things that can be done by women.”
The celebration ended with a fireworks display along the lakefront that included a fiery depiction of the American flag.
White died in the Apollo I spacecraft fire at Cape Kennedy in Florida in 1967.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 99 degrees (1987)
- Low temperature: 45 degrees (1997)
- Precipitation: 2.58 inches (1949)
- Snowfall: Trace (2002)
1949: One-time Chicago Cub Eddie Waitkus, by then with the Philadelphia Phillies, became the inspiration for “The Natural” when he was shot in the Edgewater Beach Hotel by Ruth Ann Steinhagen, a 19-year-old fan.
1977: Eight people were arrested during Chicago’s first major gay rights protest. As many as 3,000 people showed up outside Medinah Temple to contest an appearance by Anita Bryant, a singer and orange juice spokesperson who led a successful drive to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida.
1981: Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa visited Chicago. The 70-year-old founder of Missionaries of Charity decried abortion, counseled nuns to wear distinctive religious garb and supported the church’s ban on the ordination of women to the priesthood. Canonized as a saint by Pope Francis in 2016, Mother Teresa urged Catholics to dedicate themselves to service.
“We need people today to consecrate their lives just to be the touch — just to be the sweetness of Christ,” she told more than 600 people gathered at Good Counsel High School on the Northwest Side.
1986: Anthony Spilotro, 48, and his brother Michael, 41, were beaten with baseball bats then buried alive in a northwest Indiana cornfield. Contrary to what was depicted in the 1995 film “Casino,” the brothers were driven to a Bensenville home, where Michael thought he was going to become a “made member” of the Outfit. Instead, they were beaten with fists, knees and feet in the home’s basement before they were driven to the cornfield and buried.
Dental records were used by their brother Patrick Spilotro, a dentist, to identify the bodies. The details came out during the 2007 “Family Secrets” trial, which Tribune editor Jeff Coen wrote about in his 2009 book, “Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob.”
1992: The Chicago Bulls won their second NBA championship. They did it at Chicago Stadium by overcoming a 17-point deficit to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 97-93 to win the NBA Finals.
1998: The Bulls won their sixth NBA title.
2016: Chicago-based Johnson Publishing announced the sale of Ebony and Jet magazines to Austin-based Clear View Group. Johnson Publishing filed for bankruptcy in 2016, and sold its extensive archive in 2019 for $30 million.
A consortium comprising the Ford Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution announced in 2022 that it transferred ownership of the archive to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and to the Getty Research Institute.
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