Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Aug. 5, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Flashback: Aug. 5, 1924
The first published comic strip of “Little Orphan Annie” was in the New York Daily News on Aug. 5, 1924. (Daily News)
1924: New York Daily News readers were introduced to Harold Gray’s Annie, the feisty yet lovable preteen girl with no mother or father. Miss Asthma ran the big-city orphanage where she lived.
“At the time, little boy strips were all the rage,” Gray told the Tribune in 1946. “That’s one reason I decided on a little girl. I chose an orphan because I didn’t want to get involved with a lot of extraneous relatives. I wanted a simple story built around a character who would be as real to readers as Annie was to me.”
Annie was Gray’s only child, since he had none of his own. Unlike the James Whitcomb Riley poem, however, the comic strip’s target audience was not children.
“It isn’t the kids who buy the papers, it’s their parents,” Gray said.
The Tribune Syndicate (now Tribune Content Agency) helped spread comic strips including “Little Orphan Annie,” “Gasoline Alley,” “Moon Mullins” and “Terry and the Pirates,” and other editorial products to newspapers across the world.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: ‘Little Orphan Annie,’ from poem to paper, and to stage and screen
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 102 degrees (1918)
- Low temperature: 51 degrees (1994)
- Precipitation: 2.72 inches (1924)
- Snowfall: Trace (1932)
1835: An ordinance was passed outlawing as a fire hazard the stacking of feed hay in downtown Chicago.
Leo Burnett, left, is named 1966 Marketing Man of the Year and receives congratulations from Rome G. Arnold, center, president of the Chicago chapter of the American Marketing Association, and from Mayor Richard J. Daley, right, on Feb. 11, 1966. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
1935: Leo Burnett started the Chicago ad agency that created the Jolly Green Giant, Pillsbury Doughboy and Morris the Cat commercials.
Capt. George A. Stone, pilot of a Northwest Orient Airlines Stratocruiser, told officials the propellers of his aircraft, which was carrying 68 people including him, failed to reverse as he attempted to land at Midway Airport on Aug. 5, 1955. (Chicago Tribune)
1955: Capt. George A. Stone, the pilot of a Northwest Orient Airlines Stratocruiser, was credited when all 68 people survived a crash landing at Chicago’s Midway Airport. The crash occurred in the same area as a Braniff International Airways on July 17, 1955.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Plane crashes that stunned our city
“Stone told officials of Northwest Orient Airlines that the propellers of the plane failed to reverse as he made a normal landing after a flight from Minneapolis,” the Tribune reported.
Aides shield the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. after he was struck by a rock in Marquette Park during an Aug. 5, 1966, march in Chicago. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
1966: During a march in Marquette Park to protest racial inequality in housing, Martin Luther King Jr. was struck by a rock.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march through Marquette Park
“I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen — even in Mississippi and Alabama — mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I’ve seen here in Chicago,” King told reporters afterward.
President Barack Obama greets workers as he tours the Ford Torrence Avenue assembly plant on Aug. 5, 2010, on Chicago’s South Side. (David Pierini/Chicago Tribune)
2010: President Barack Obama told autoworkers at a Southeast Side Ford plant that his bailout push helped save an “industry on the brink.”
“I refuse to walk away from this industry and American jobs. I put my faith in the American worker,” Obama told workers at the Ford Torrence Avenue assembly plant.
In Barack Obama’s words: 20 memorable quotes from the president’s Chicago appearances
Want more vintage Chicago?
Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.
Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather at krumore@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com