Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 15, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 69 degrees (1954)
- Low temperature: Minus 9 degrees (1905)
- Precipitation: 0.78 inches (1954)
- Snowfall: 6.1 inches (2021)
Vintage Chicago Tribune: 4 Illinois athletes who won GOLD at the Winter Olympics
1932: Chicago-raised Billy Fiske piloted the U.S. men to their second Olympic gold medal in bobsled during Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.
Fiske lived a brief but extraordinary life. Born into a wealthy banking family in Chicago in 1911 — that could trace its roots to the Mayflower — he was educated overseas during his teen years.
That’s where he was chosen — at age 16 — as the driver for the United States’ five-man bobsled team in the 1928 Olympic games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The team won gold.
1933: Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was struck by an assassin’s bullet presumably intended for President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami; he died March 6.
Once at the hospital, Cermak reportedly uttered the line that is engraved on his tomb. Speaking to FDR, Cermak allegedly said: “I’m glad it was me instead of you.” The Tribune reported the quote without attributing it to a witness, and most scholars doubt it was ever said.
1964: Chicago Cubs star second baseman Ken Hubbs was killed when the small plane he piloted crashed soon after takeoff from Provo, Utah. Dennis Doyle, a friend of the former MLB rookie of the year, also died in the crash.
1990: “Space chicken” donated to Lincoln Park Zoo. Out of 67 billion chicken eggs laid in the United States the year before, 32 were sent into orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery. One of the surviving embryonic space travelers — by then a 7-pound, 10-month-old white hen named “Discovery” — was donated by Purdue University to the poultry barn at Lincoln Park’s Farm-in-the-Zoo.
2023: The Chicago Bears purchased the former Arlington Park site.
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