Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 4, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 66 degrees (1998)
- Low temperature: Zero degrees (1893)
- Precipitation: 1.19 inches (1973)
- Snowfall: 6.4 inches (2016)
On Dec. 4, 1940, a United Airlines plane crashed while trying to land at Chicago Airport, now known as Midway Airport. Ten people died in the crash, including the pilot, Phil Scott, and the co-pilot, George Young. The roof of a house near 64th Street and Kilpatrick Avenue was damaged by the plane. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
1940: A United Airlines DC-3, laden with ice on its windshield and wings, stalled and crashed into a house at 6350 S. Keating Ave. on its second landing attempt at now-Midway International Airport, killing 10. It’s believed to be the first commercial airplane crash in the city.
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The crash caused the Civil Aeronautics Board to recommend that stall-warning devices be installed on airplanes to let pilots know when they are going too slow to stay aloft and to urge research into ways to reduce icing.
A crowd forms in front of the Black Panthers headquarters at 2337 W. Monroe St. as the grand jury heads into the apartment on Jan. 8, 1970. Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed in a shootout at the apartment on Dec. 4, 1969. (Arthur Walker/Chicago Tribune)
1969: Police raided a two-flat at 2337 W. Monroe St. — Illinois’ Black Panther Party stronghold — killing party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
Officially, the Cook County state’s attorney’s 4:30 a.m. raid by 14 Chicago police officers began as the execution of a search warrant to turn up weapons and explosives that the feared black power group was supposedly hoarding inside.
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Survivors described a far more frightening scene: Officers armed with shotguns and rifles opening fire on sleeping Black Panther members inside, among them Hampton’s pregnant fiancee. A special federal grand jury determined that police sprayed 82 to 99 gunshots through doors, walls and windows, while just one shot appeared to have been fired by someone inside.
Mayor Richard M. Daley defends the city’s action to privatize parking meters following a meeting at City Hall in Chicago on June 3, 2009. (Kuni Takahashi/Chicago Tribune)
2008: Mayor Richard M. Daley struck a deal to close a budget shortfall — the city got a paltry $1.16 billion upfront in return for a 75-year lease of Chicago’s paid street parking system to Chicago Parking Meters (CPM). Nearly all of the one-time windfall would be spent by the time Daley handed over the reins to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The contract required the city to drastically raise rates on behalf of the company.
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Chicago’s inspector general confirmed in 2019 that the city had sold out for far less than the lease’s value. A report by Bloomberg Business said CPM stood to earn about 10 times what it paid over the life of the contract.
“Any way you slice it financially, Chicago got taken to the cleaners,” the Tribune Editorial Board wrote in 2023.
Former Ald. Edward Vrdolyak talks with reporters as he leaves the the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Feb. 26, 2009, in Chicago. Vrdolyak was sentenced to five years probation for his role in a $1.5 million kickback scheme. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
2020: Longtime 10th Ward Ald. Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty the previous year to conspiring to commit mail fraud in a scheme to collect a $1.5 million fee when Rosalind Franklin University went to sell a Gold Coast property.
Vrdolyak served about five months of an 18-month sentence for a 2019 guilty plea to a tax charge alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into payments to and from a friend and associate related to the state’s $9.2 billion settlement with tobacco companies in the late 1990s.
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