Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 3, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Front page flashback: April 4, 1996
Without information from David Kaczynski, brother of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, authorities might still be pursuing the case they initially dubbed UNABOMB, because the early cases involved universities, the “UN,” and airlines, the “A.” (Chicago Tribune)
1996: “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, a Chicago-area native, was arrested at his remote Montana cabin.
5 things you might not know about Chicago native Ted Kaczynski — the ‘Unabomber’
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 81 degrees (1956)
- Low temperature: 17 degrees (1987)
- Precipitation: 0.93 inches (1974)
- Snowfall: 2.7 inches (1984)
1923: Wiliam “Decent” Dever — a “wet” Democrat — was elected mayor on the reform ticket, in an attempt to clean up the rampant vice in Chicago.
Dever was voted out four years later.
But his name remains imprinted on a water crib in Lake Michigan.
Martin Cooper holds a Motorola DynaTAC, a 1973 prototype of the first handheld cellular telephone in San Francisco, on April 2, 2003. (Eric Risberg/AP)
1973: Motorola executive Martin Cooper made the very first cellphone call. And though it took place in New York City, its guts and inspiration were all Chicago.
Dutchie Caray, wife of Chicago Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray, sings during the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field on April 3, 1998. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune)
1998: “Let ’em hear you in heaven.” Dutchie Caray — the widow of Cubs TV play-by-play announcer Harry Caray — led the seventh-inning stretch during opening day at Wrigley Field. Organist Gary Pressey launched into “Amazing Grace” as balloons were released from the bleachers in Caray’s honor.
A coyote that wandered into a Chicago Quizno’s is released in Barrington Hills by Dawn Keller of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation on April 4, 2007. (Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune)
2007: Shortly after lunchtime, a docile coyote nonchalantly wandered through the propped-open door of a Quiznos submarine sandwich shop at 37 E. Adams St. in downtown Chicago and plopped down in front of the soda cooler.
Officials picked up the year-old male about an hour after it entered the restaurant. The animal ate nothing and no one was harmed.
The coyote was released later in Barrington Hills on 9 acres of private property, where rabbits and mice — not submarine sandwiches and chips — would be his daily fare.
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