Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
The Avery Coonley School is an independent, coeducationalday school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove. The school was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and other turn-of-the-20th-century philosophers, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, Avery Coonley was part of the National College of Education (now National-Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools, and began to focus on the education of the gifted.
The school has occupied several structures in its history, including a small cottage on the Coonley Estate in Riverside, Illinois, and another building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It moved to Downers Grove in 1916 and became the Avery Coonley School in 1929, with a new 10.45-acre (4.23 ha) campus designed in the Prairie and Arts and Crafts styles, landscaped by Jens Jensen, who was known as "dean of the world's landscape architects". The campus has been expanded several times since the 1980s to create more space for arts, technology, and classrooms. Avery Coonley was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, citing the "long-lasting influence on schools throughout the country" of the educational program and the design of the building and grounds. (Read more...)
Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. was an American mammalogist, bacteriologist, and pathologist. He was born into a military family at Rock Island Arsenal, and demonstrated an early interest in zoology by collecting local wildlife around his father's army posts. He graduated from Brown University in 1897, and continued his studies at George Washington University while working part-time at the United States National Museum (USNM). He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1913. In 1919, he and his wife, Martha, moved to South Bend, Indiana to join a newly opened clinic. Prior to moving, Lyon had published many papers on mammalogy, both during and after his tenure at the USNM. In these papers, he had formally described six species, three genera, and one family. Once in South Bend, he began to publish medical studies, too, but continued his work in mammalogy, with a particular focus on the local fauna of Indiana. He published more than 160 papers during his career.
... that although Olga Hartman believed that her basic research on marine worms had no practical value, it was applied to experimental studies of oysters?
... that Jack Washburn was called "Cinderella Boy" for winning a starring role in his first Broadway show?
... that four course records were broken during the 2023 Chicago Marathon(women's winner pictured)?
... that the restaurant CosMc's is named after a character from McDonaldland?
... that Salty Parker, who spent 60 years in organized baseball, described his lifelong love of the game as "a beautiful disease"?
Image 13"Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate for the presidency, 1860," a lithograph by Leopold Grozelier, et al. According to the Library of Congress, "Thomas Hicks painted a portrait of Lincoln at his office in Springfield specifically for this lithograph." Image credit: Thomas Hicks (painter), Leopold Grozelier (lithographer), W. William Schaus (publisher), J.H. Bufford's Lith. (printer), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 16"The Great Presidential Puzzle": This chromolithograph cartoon about the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago shows Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwarts of the Republican Party, playing a puzzle game. All blocks in the puzzle are the heads of the potential Republican presidential candidates. The cartoon parodies the famous 15 puzzle. Image credit: Mayer, Merkel, & Ottmann (lithographers); James Albert Wales (artist); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 25A street view of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park. Wright built the house in 1889 and added the Studio and Connecting Corridor in 1898. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has restored the property to its appearance in 1909, the last year the architect lived there with his family. Photo credit: User:Banewson (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 30The dome of the Illinois State Capitol. Designed by architects Cochrane and Garnsey, the dome's interior features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze and illustrating scenes from Illinois history. Stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the State Seal, appear in the oculus. Ground was first broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1869, and it was completed twenty years later. Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 31A poster for the Century of Progress World's Fair showing exhibition buildings with boats in the foreground.. Image credit: Weimer Pursell (artist); Neely Printing Co., Chicago (silkscreen print); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 55A great blue heron(Ardea herodias) flying with nesting material in Illinois. There is a colony of about twenty heron nests in trees nearby. Image credit: PhotoBobil (photographer), Snowmanradio (upload), PetarM (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
October 26, 2021: Workers for Chicago-based McDonald's in ten cities go on strike to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment in the workplace.
October 18, 2021: The Chicago Police Department reports that more than a third of its officers have failed to meet a deadline for reporting whether they have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
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