Illinois Bicentennial

Michael Royko Jr. was an American newspaper columnist from Chicago. Over his 30-year career, he wrote over 7,500 daily columns for three newspapers, the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He passed away at the age of 64 on April 29, 1941.

Arthur W. Mitchell, the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat, filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Central and Rock Island Railroads after he was forced into a segregated train car just before it passed into Arkansas. Mitchell's suit was advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court as case Mitchell v. the United States, which ruled that the railroad violated the Interstate Commerce Act.

On April 26, 1941, the Cubs became the first Major League team to have organ music at a ballgame.

Augustine Tolton was the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black when he was ordained on April 24,1886.

Stephen A. Douglas was an American politician from Illinois and the designer of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He was a member of the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln.

On April 22, 1856, the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River was completed between Rock Island and Davenport. Just 15 days later, the bridge was struck by a steamboat and burned.

The Lager Beer Riot occurred on April 21, 1855 in Chicago, Illinois. Mayor Levi Boone renewed enforcement of an old local ordinance mandating that taverns be closed on Sundays and led the city council to raise the cost of a liquor license from $50 per year to $300 per year, renewable quarterly.

On April 20, 1769, Pontiac, the famous chief of the Ottawa Indians, was murdered by a member of the Illini tribe.

Charles "Charlie" Birger was an American bootlegger during the Prohibition period in Southern Illinois and the last to be hanged in Illinois.

The flood of 1881 destroyed all remnants of the original town and the Mississippi shifted into the channel of the Kaskaskia River, passing east instead of west of the town.

Hennepin Canal, is an abandoned waterway in northwest Illinois, between the Mississippi River at Rock Island and the Illinois River near Hennepin.

Julia Clifford Lathrop was born in 1858 in Rockford, Illinois, United States. Daughter of William and Sarah Adeline Lathrop. Lathrop was the first woman ever to head a United States federal bureau.

The Chicago flood occurred on April 13, 1992, when the damaged wall of a utility tunnel beneath the Chicago River opened into a breach which flooded basements with an estimated 250 million US gallons of water.

Democratic congressman Harold Washington was elected Chicago's first black mayor, narrowly winning the racially bitter race against millionaire Republican Bernard Epton.

Two days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army, virtually ending the Civil War, a jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House, calling for President Lincoln.

The Pana Massacre occurred on April 10, 1899, in Pana, Illinois, and resulted in the deaths of seven people. It was one of many similar labor conflicts across Illinois that year.