Illinois Bicentennial

King Neptune was a pig used by a United States Navy recruiter to raise $19 million in war bonds for the construction of the Iowa-class battleship Illinois between 1942 and 1946. King Neptune was born May 16, 1942.

Cyrus McCormick was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902.

The Adler Planetarium is a public museum dedicated to the study of astronomy and astrophysics. It was founded in 1930 by Chicago business leader Max Adler.

The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States that lasted from May 11 to July 20, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law.

Joy Sterling Morton was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding Morton Salt and establishing the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. He passed away at the age of 78 on May 10, 1934.

Jim Thompson was the 37th and longest-serving Governor of the US state of Illinois, serving from 1977 to 1991. Thompson was born on May 8, 1936 in Chicago.

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious American New Deal agency, employing millions of people to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads.

The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based weekly newspaper founded on May 5, 1905 by Robert S. Abbott for primarily African-American readers.

Haymarket Riot was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday, May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago.

After thirteen days traveling from Washington D.C., Lincoln's funeral car reached Springfield, where the late president lay in state in the Illinois Hall of Representatives in the State Capitol.

The Bahá'í House of Worship is a temple in Wilmette, Illinois and is one of ten dedicated temples of the Bahá'í Faith. It is the oldest surviving Bahá'í House of Worship in the world and was dedicated on May 2, 1953.

Also known as the Chicago World's Fair opened on May 1, 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492.

Friday, April 30, 1926, was the red-letter day — the day that the impasse over Route 60 began to be resolved, and and the future Route 66 born.