Today in Chicago History: Mayor Richard J. Daley, who held the office for 21 years, dies of a heart attack

Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 20 according to the Tribune’s archives.

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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)

• High temperature: 67 degrees (1877)
• Low temperature: Minus 9 degrees (1963)
• Precipitation: 1.67 inches (1895)
• Snowfall: 11 inches (1960)

1951: The Edens Expressway opened during a snowstorm.

The “superhighway” was named in honor of Col. William G. Edens, a retired banker who is credited with having “taken Illinois out of the mud” by promoting the state’s first highway bond issues, which was voted on in 1918.

Also in 1951: Scientists and engineers at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, under director Walter H. Zinn, created the first nuclear reactor to produce useful electricity. The Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I) was turned on for the first time in Idaho. The facility remained in use until 1964.

1972: Two planes collided on a fog-shrouded runway at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, killing 10 of the 138 aboard. All the victims initially survived the collision, but some were overcome by fumes from the burning North Central Airlines DC-9 jet.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Plane crashes that stunned our city

Poor communications between controllers and the crew of the Delta Air Lines Convair 880, which caused the Delta plane to taxi across a runway being used by the North Central plane for a takeoff, were cited. The ensuing fire caused federal officials to recommend the use of less toxic materials and better lights in airline cabins.

1976: Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley — who held the office for 21 years — died of a heart attack.

On that frigid Monday, Daley had attended a traditional Christmas breakfast meeting with his top Cabinet officers at the Bismarck Hotel.

After a morning of routine office business on the fifth floor of City Hall, Daley strolled at noontime with his top aide, Thomas Donovan, to the Civic Center Plaza, since named for Daley, to look at ice sculptures commissioned by the city for the Christmas season.

Daley then traveled in his limousine to Ald. Edward Vrdolyak’s 10th Ward on the Far South Side to help the alderman and Chicago Park District General Superintendent Edmund Kelly dedicate a new gymnasium in Mann Park, 130th Street and Carondolet Avenue. It is now part of Chicago legend that both Vrdolyak and Kelly made unsuccessful shots at a basketball hoop, but Daley, given the ball, tossed it up and scored.

On his return ride to his downtown office, Daley complained of chest pains and was taken to the office of his personal physician, Thomas J. Coogan Jr., at 900 N. Michigan Ave. A quick examination convinced Coogan that Daley required hospitalization, and he went to a telephone to call Northwestern Memorial and tell them to prepare.

Daley, meanwhile, called his family from the examination room, and during that call, he dropped to the floor, stricken by a fatal heart attack. By mid-afternoon, Frank Sullivan, Daley’s press secretary, tearfully announced to the reporters that Daley was dead.

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