Page 22 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Chicago

20  INTRODUCING CHIC A GO

By 1914, waves income-tax evasion that put Capone in
of immigrants prison in 1931. He was released on parole
from Europe eight years later.
had arrived
in Chicago. Chicago Milestones: 1920s–60s
Industrialization The Chicago Municipal Airport (now
now brought Midway Airport) opened in 1927. From
another wave: 1945 to 1958, it was the world’s busiest
African Americans airport, before being replaced by O’Hare,
from the South, which was equipped to handle the new
Speakeasy directions written in chalk seeking work jetliners and is today one of the
after being world’s busiest airports.
displaced from farm work by the cotton gin The old airport brought vis-
and other new machinery. Chicago’s Black itors to the 1933–4 World’s Fair.
population increased by about 14,000 in Showcasing innovative
1910 to almost 110,000 by the early 1920s. uses of electricity, the fair
Previous arrivals did not always welcome attracted 39 million people.
the new migrants. A 1919 race riot that Another kind of energy came
started at a segregated South Side beach to the fore when, in 1942, Physicist Enrico Fermi
raged for several days, leaving 38 dead physicist Enrico Fermi from the
and nearly 300 injured. University of Chicago conducted the world’s
Speakeasies, illicit social clubs offering first controlled atomic reaction (see p102).
liquor despite the prohibition of alcohol, After World War II, the city’s economy
flourished in the 1920s and made way for boomed, its population peaking at 3.6
the bootlegging gangster. The most million. New arrivals included musicians
famous gangster – and the one most from the Mississippi Delta and by 1950,
closely linked to Chicago in the public they were recording a new form of blues.
mind – was Al Capone, who
arrived in 1919 from New York.
Capone is legendary for his
bloody gang war. In the
notorious 1929 St. Valentine’s
Day Massacre, seven mobsters
from a rival gang were killed
execution-style by mobsters
loyal to Capone.
Almost as famous were Eliot
Ness and his team, who
collected the evidence of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, one of the world’s busiest

1968 Democratic National
1933 Chicago 1942 First controlled 1953 Hugh Hefner Convention riots
1928 Chicago River hosts Century atomic chain reaction, publishes first
straightened to allow for of Progress at University of Chicago issue of Playboy
expansion of downtown World’s Fair
magazine
1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
1929 St. Valentine’s 1955 Richard J. Daley 1966 Martin
Day Massacre 1931 Eliot Ness elected mayor Luther King Jr.
succeeds in brings civil rights
1919 Mobster convicting Al 1943 Chicago’s 1959 White Sox win movement
Al Capone Capone first subway opens American League to Chicago
arrives Eliot Ness baseball pennant

016-021_EW_Chicago.indd 20 13/07/16 2:58 pm
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
History Portrait template “UK” LAYER
(Source v1.2)
Date 20th August 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm