Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Jan. 14, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Front page flashback: Jan. 15, 2022
2022: Chicago Public Schools students staged a walkout over the return to in-person learning amid lackluster COVID precautions.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 60 degrees (1928)
- Low temperature: Minus 14 degrees (1979)
- Precipitation: 1.1 inches (1871)
- Snowfall: 6.3 inches (1929)
1947: Former Chicago Bears end Bill Hewitt — one of the last NFL players to not wear a helmet — died at 37 after his car skidded off a wet road and hit a culvert in Pennsylvania.
In 1949, Halas decided to retire the uniform numbers of the most important players in team history. He chose three: Red Grange’s 77, Bronko Nagurski’s 3 and Hewitt’s 56.
From Halas to Hester: The 32 Chicago Bears inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Hewitt was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971 — with President Richard Nixon as the guest speaker.
1961: Chicago Bears end Willard Dewveall — who was no longer under contract with the team and was replaced when the Bears signed Mike Ditka — became the first NFL player to join the American Football League when he signed a deal with the Houston Oilers.
2019: Micheail Ward was sentenced to 84 years in prison for the fatal January 2013 shooting of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in Harsh Park.
More than two months after the Illinois Supreme Court allowed his conviction to remain overturned, a judge once again ordered Ward held in jail in March 2025 while awaiting trial.
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