Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Oct. 5, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 88 degrees (1997)
- Low temperature: 28 degrees (1980)
- Precipitation: 2.01 inches (1955)
- Snowfall: Trace (1935)
1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Outer Drive Bridge, which included the infamous “S” curve.
Ed Wagner Jr. / Chicago Tribune
Crowds gather around the main platform for an open-air Mass with Pope John Paul II at Grant Park during his visit to Chicago on Oct. 5, 1979. (Ed Wagner Jr./Chicago Tribune)
1979: For three hours, Grant Park became a church and Pope John Paul II presided. A huge crowd — estimated at 1 million or more people — was its congregation.
“Perhaps what didn’t happen at the Mass was as impressive as what did: The crowd did not, for the most part, become restless and rowdy, even though many — including children — had waited for four hours and longer,” Tribune reporter Michael Hirsley wrote a few days later.
2018: Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Van Dyke was released from prison in February 2022.
2023: At least 960 migrating birds, the highest number on record, died in “massive carnage” at McCormick Place Lakeside Center, according to David Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Field Museum. Birds were crashing into windows even as monitors collected the casualties, Willard said. Willard blamed the worst day in 40 years of monitoring on an array of factors, including weather patterns, badly timed rain and lit windows at Lakeside Center.
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