121 Fun Facts About Chicago

Which restaurant is often credited with inventing Chicago-style deep-dish pizza?

Pizzeria Uno's co-founder Ike Sewell first wanted to open a Mexican restaurant; some credit the deep-dish recipe itself to an early employee, Rudy Malnati, whose son Lou later started a rival chain.

Legend blames which animal for starting the Great Chicago Fire?

Cow: the tale of a kicked-over lantern was in print soon after the fire, though a reporter later admitted that the story had been made up.

Which president-elect gave his election-night victory speech to a huge crowd in Chicago's Grant Park?

Barack Obama held his 2008 rally in his adopted home city, in the same park where police and protesters had clashed during the 1968 Democratic convention.

What is the official name of the 'Bean' sculpture in Millennium Park?

Cloud Gate is Anish Kapoor's own title for the piece; the public coined 'the Bean' while it was being built, and Kapoor at first dismissed the nickname.

Which Chicago institution is home to Sue, one of the most complete T. rex skeletons?

The Field Museum won Sue at a 1997 auction, with McDonald's and Disney helping to pay, after a five-year fight over who owned the South Dakota fossil.

Under what name did the 110-storey Loop skyscraper now called Willis open in 1973?

Sears Tower was the name until 2009, when London insurance broker Willis Group leased offices there and got the naming rights; Sears itself had moved out in the 1990s.

Which director set 1980s teen comedies such as 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' in Chicago and its North Shore suburbs?

John Hughes grew up in suburban Northbrook, once called Shermerville, and set several of his films in a fictional Shermer, Illinois, modelled partly on it.

Between the Bulls' two 1990s title three-peats, Michael Jordan retired from basketball to play which sport professionally?

Baseball: Jordan quit the NBA in October 1993 and spent 1994 with the minor-league Birmingham Barons, batting .202, before returning to win three more titles.

Chicago is the hub of an electrified, urban form of which genre, carried north by the Great Migration?

Blues: Delta players who came north swapped acoustic guitars for electric ones so they could be heard in Chicago's noisy clubs, and Muddy Waters bought his first in 1944.

Which trader of African descent is recognised as the first permanent non-indigenous settler of what became Chicago?

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable ran a trading farm at the mouth of the Chicago River until 1800; in 2021 the city renamed the outer part of Lake Shore Drive in his honour.

Which famous American highway, nicknamed 'The Mother Road' in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, historically begins in Chicago?

Route 66 ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, California; as interstates replaced it stretch by stretch, it was dropped from the US highway system in 1985.

Which Chicago exchange, later famous for pork belly futures, began in 1898 trading butter and eggs?

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange started as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, took its present name in 1919, and in 1972 opened the first futures market in foreign currencies.

Which team left Wrigley Field after decades there to make Soldier Field its home in 1971?

The Chicago Bears had to go: after the AFL-NFL merger the league wanted stadiums seating at least 50,000, and Wrigley Field held too few.

In the 1850s and 1860s Chicago jacked up its downtown streets and buildings by several feet to make room for what?

A sewer system: the city sat too low to drain, so engineers laid the pipes on top of the old streets, covered them over, and lifted whole brick buildings on jackscrews to the new level.

In 2025 Chicago Fire FC announced a privately funded soccer stadium as the anchor of which riverside development?

The 78 is named as a would-be 78th neighbourhood beside Chicago's 77 official community areas; the club broke ground on the stadium there in March 2026.

Chicago's name is usually traced to an Algonquian word for which pungent plant that once grew thickly there?

Wild onion: the name was the river's first, noted by travellers in the 1600s, and the town that later grew up at its mouth took it from the river.

At the 2020 census, which city besides New York was more populous than Chicago?

Los Angeles passed Chicago in population in the 1980s; until then only New York had outranked the Midwestern city since 1890.

Which indigenous people inhabited the Chicago area in the mid-18th century?

The Potawatomi gave up the last of their land around Chicago in an 1833 treaty signed there, in return for payments and tracts west of the Mississippi.

The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 killed roughly how many people?

About 300 people died, though some 17,000 buildings burned and 100,000 residents lost their homes; Fire Prevention Week is held each October to mark the anniversary.

In 1997, the Chicago City Council formally exonerated whom of blame for the Great Chicago Fire?

Catherine O'Leary was cleared after amateur historian Richard Bales argued the fire more likely began with a neighbour, Daniel 'Peg Leg' Sullivan, the man who first raised the alarm.

A donation from which country after the Great Chicago Fire spurred the founding of Chicago Public Library?

The United Kingdom: a British book drive backed by the author of Tom Brown's School Days sent some 8,000 volumes, and the library opened in 1873 inside an old circular water tank.

A statue of which Roman goddess crowns the Chicago Board of Trade Building?

Ceres, Roman goddess of grain, tops the 1930 Art Deco tower as a faceless aluminum statue by John Storrs, a nod to an exchange built on wheat and corn futures.

Which engineer of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill worked with architect Bruce Graham on the Willis Tower?

Fazlur Rahman Khan's 'bundled tube' design ties nine square tubes together so they brace one another against the wind, which let the tower climb to 110 storeys.

Chicago reversed its river's flow in 1900 chiefly to protect what?

Drinking water came from Lake Michigan, where the river had been carrying the city's waste and raising fears of disease; since 1900 a canal has drawn the flow away from the lake, toward the Mississippi.

Chicago's Y-shaped civic symbol, seen on buildings across the city, represents what?

The three branches of the river: the Municipal Device's Y stands for the North and South Branches meeting the main stem at Wolf Point; it came out of an 1892 Chicago Tribune contest.

Which talk-show host taped her syndicated daytime show in Chicago from 1986 to 2011?

Oprah Winfrey came to Chicago in 1984 to host the low-rated AM Chicago; within months it had overtaken Donahue in the local ratings, and in 1986 it went national under her name.

Which substance inspired the mirror-like form of Millennium Park's sculpture nicknamed 'The Bean'?

Liquid mercury inspired the seamless skin: the sculpture was unveiled unfinished in 2004 with its weld lines showing, then tented while crews ground and polished them away.

Which climbing plant has covered the brick outfield walls of Wrigley Field since 1937?

Ivy was planted along the walls in 1937 at the urging of Bill Veeck; under the park's ground rules, a ball that gets stuck in the vines is a ground-rule double.

In 1988 Wrigley Field became the last major-league ballpark to add what?

Lights for night games arrived on 8 August 1988, and rain washed out that first night; lights bought for 1942 had been given to the war effort after Pearl Harbor.

The 1893 Chicago world's fair marked the 400th anniversary of what?

Columbus's landing in the Americas came in 1492: the fair was dedicated in October 1892, but its gates opened to the public only the following May.

Which chocolate treat is said to have been created at Chicago's Palmer House hotel for the 1893 world's fair?

The brownie: socialite Bertha Palmer is said to have asked the hotel's pastry chef for a dessert smaller than a slice of cake for ladies visiting the fair, and the Palmer House still sells her recipe.

The world's first Ferris wheel, built for the 1893 fair, was designed to rival which structure?

The Eiffel Tower, star of Paris's 1889 fair, was the mark to beat: Chicago's directors challenged engineers to top it, and George Ferris answered with a wheel of 36 cars holding 60 riders each.

Chicago's Home Insurance Building of 1885 is often called the first skyscraper because what carried its weight?

A metal frame, not the walls, bore the load: William Le Baron Jenney hung the ten-storey building on an iron and steel skeleton, the idea that let later towers climb far higher.

Which team did the Cubs beat in 2016 to end their 108-year title drought?

The Cleveland Indians led the series three games to one, but the Cubs won the next three, taking Game 7 in ten innings after a rain delay.

Which team beat the Chicago White Sox in the fixed 1919 World Series?

The Cincinnati Reds took the best-of-nine series five games to three; eight White Sox players, Shoeless Joe Jackson among them, were banned for life over the fix despite being acquitted in court.

Which coach, nicknamed 'Papa Bear', moved the Staleys to Chicago in 1921?

George Halas ran the team for starch maker Augustus Staley, who gave him $5,000 to take it to Chicago on condition it kept the Staleys name for one more season.

Which Bears lineman, nicknamed 'The Refrigerator', scored a touchdown in the team's Super Bowl XX win?

William Perry, a rookie defensive tackle, ran in from a yard out, while star back Walter Payton never scored that day, which coach Mike Ditka later called one of his biggest regrets.

Al Capone was finally convicted in 1931 on charges of what?

Tax evasion: a 1927 Supreme Court ruling had made illegal income taxable, so prosecutors went after Capone's unreported earnings rather than his rackets, and he drew 11 years.

On which 1929 holiday did gunmen kill seven men in a Chicago garage?

Valentine's Day: gunmen dressed as police lined the men up against the garage wall; the likely target, gang boss Bugs Moran, had not yet arrived and survived.

Chicago's train system, running since 1892, has what nickname?

The L, short for elevated, began in 1892 with a single South Side line, extended the next year to carry crowds to the world's fair in Jackson Park.

Which lakefront landmark, opened in 1916 for shipping, later housed a university campus?

Navy Pier opened as Municipal Pier, with shipping sheds and a ballroom at its far end; from 1946 the University of Illinois held classes there to cope with the rush of returning veterans.

Chicago mayor Michael Bilandic lost the 1979 primary after mishandling what?

A blizzard paralysed the city that January and voters blamed the mayor for the slow clean-up; weeks later the challenger who beat him became Chicago's first woman mayor.

Chicago mayor Anton Cermak was fatally shot in 1933 by a gunman aiming at which president-elect?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was unhurt when Giuseppe Zangara opened fire on his open car in Miami; Cermak died 19 days later, and Chicago renamed 22nd Street Cermak Road.

Which 1979 promotion at a Chicago ballpark ended in a riot that forced the home team to forfeit a game?

Disco Demolition Night: DJ Steve Dahl blew up a crate of disco records between games of a doubleheader, fans stormed the wrecked field, and the home team had to forfeit the second game to Detroit.

Which 2008 Batman film shot its Gotham City truck chase on Chicago's Wacker Drive?

The Dark Knight spent three weeks filming the chase on the multi-level street, closed overnight; Christopher Nolan picked Chicago because its architecture was less recognisable than New York's.

The 1906 White Sox, who upset the 116-win Cubs, were known by what nickname?

Hitless Wonders: the White Sox had the worst batting average in their league that year, yet beat the 116-win Cubs in six games.

The Chicago Bulls' name nods to which local industry?

Meatpacking: founder Dick Klein wanted a name that evoked the stockyards, and by his account chose Bulls when his son scoffed at other ideas as 'a bunch of bull'.

Which Chicago team won its first WNBA title in 2021?

The Chicago Sky went just 16-16 in the regular season and entered the playoffs as the sixth seed, then won the Finals 3-1 with Kahleah Copper as MVP.

Which arena did the United Center replace in 1994?

Chicago Stadium was famed for its noise: fans roared straight through the national anthem and the arena housed the largest Barton pipe organ ever built; it was demolished in 1995.

In 2025, which Bulls and Blackhawks owners co-owned the United Center?

Reinsdorf and Wirtz: the two teams' owners built the arena in partnership, and have since proposed the 1901 Project, a plan to turn the parking lots around it into a new neighbourhood.

The first MLB All-Star Game was played in 1933 at which ballpark on Chicago's South Side?

Comiskey Park staged it on 6 July 1933 as a one-off attraction for the city's Century of Progress world's fair, an idea of Tribune sports editor Arch Ward; Babe Ruth hit its first home run.

Millennium Park, opened in 2004, was built on a deck covering what?

Railroad tracks: the park roofs over commuter rail lines and parking garages, which is why it counts as a vast green roof; planned for the millennium, it opened four years late.

Lincoln Park Zoo, founded in 1868, is unusual among major US zoos for what?

Free admission: the zoo charges nothing at the gate, 365 days a year; it began in 1868 with a gift of swans from New York's Central Park.

Which Grant Wood painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago?

American Gothic's stern farmer and daughter were posed by the painter's sister and his dentist; the painting has stayed at the museum since it won a $300 prize at its 1930 exhibition.

Why did the Palace of Fine Arts outlast the 1893 fair's other halls?

It had a brick core because lenders insisted on a fireproof home for their art; re-clad in limestone, the hall reopened in 1933 as the Museum of Science and Industry.

Which captured German war machine is a star exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry?

U-boat: a US boarding party disarmed U-505's scuttling charges at sea, and the capture was kept secret so that Germany would not find out.

How did fish first reach Chicago's Shedd Aquarium?

By rail: far from any ocean, the Shedd pioneered a specially built car to carry the live fish and other sea creatures it collected back to Chicago.

Buckingham Fountain was inspired by the Latona Fountain at which palace?

Versailles: Kate Buckingham gave the 1927 fountain in memory of her brother Clarence, and its four pairs of sea horses stand for the four states that border Lake Michigan.

Which castle-like limestone landmark on Michigan Avenue is famed as a survivor of the Great Chicago Fire?

The Water Tower was built in 1869 simply to hide a tall standpipe for the pumping station next door; it became the best-known structure left standing in the burned district.

Chicago's Tribune Tower has what set into its outer walls?

Fragments of famous landmarks: publisher Robert McCormick asked his correspondents to bring back stones from sites around the world, and the collection kept growing for decades afterwards.

The Wrigley Building's bright white facade is covered in what material?

Terra cotta: the glazed cladding comes in six shades of white that grow brighter as the building rises, an effect heightened by floodlights at night.

On topping out in 1968, the John Hancock Center was the world's second-tallest building after what?

The Empire State Building alone stood taller in 1968; in 2018 the insurer asked for its name to be taken off the tower, which is now known by its address, 875 North Michigan Avenue.

Marina City's twin towers are often compared to what?

Corncobs: Bertrand Goldberg's 1960s towers were an experiment in drawing people back downtown from the suburbs, so he packed a theatre, ice rink, bowling alley and marina into a 'city within a city'.

Which retailer built the Merchandise Mart, the world's largest building when it opened in 1930?

Marshall Field & Co. built the 4-million-square-foot Art Deco Mart to house its wholesale business; Joseph P. Kennedy bought it in the mid-1940s and his family held it until 1998.

Which 1888 Burnham and Root office building has a glass-roofed lobby later remodelled by Frank Lloyd Wright?

The Rookery housed Burnham and Root's own offices; Frank Lloyd Wright's makeover, finished in 1907, hid Root's ornate ironwork under white marble and gold.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, completed in 1910, sits on which school's campus?

University of Chicago: the seminary that owned the Prairie-style house planned to demolish it in 1957, and Frank Lloyd Wright, then almost 90, came back in person to fight for it.

Which phrase is attributed to Chicago architect Louis Sullivan?

Form follows function: Sullivan wrote 'form ever follows function' in an 1896 essay on the tall office building; called a father of skyscrapers, he mentored Frank Lloyd Wright.

Which Chicago suburb was Frank Lloyd Wright's home for 20 years and is dotted with his early Prairie houses?

Oak Park: Wright settled there in 1889 and worked from a studio built onto his house, then in 1909 left his wife and practice for Europe with Mamah Cheney, the wife of a client.

The Chicago Theatre's 1921 State Street facade is often likened to which Paris monument?

The Arc de Triomphe: a six-storey arch dominates the front of the old movie palace, which closed in 1985, was bought to save it from demolition and reopened a year later with a Frank Sinatra gala.

Which actor co-founded Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1974?

Gary Sinise founded Steppenwolf with Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney; the name came from the Hermann Hesse novel an early member was reading as they readied the first production in 1974.

Who founded the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1891?

Theodore Thomas led the orchestra from its 1891 founding until his death in January 1905, weeks after Orchestra Hall opened; it is one of America's 'Big Five' orchestras.

Which conductor led the Chicago Symphony from 2010 to 2023?

Riccardo Muti was music director from 2010 to 2023, the orchestra's tenth, then became music director emeritus for life; Klaus Mäkelä was named his successor in 2024, to begin in 2027.

A fully loaded Chicago-style hot dog is said to be "dragged through" what?

The garden: the phrase covers the mustard, neon relish, chopped onion, tomato wedges, pickle spear, sport peppers and celery salt piled on top, and never ketchup.

Which type of bun is a Chicago-style hot dog typically served on?

Poppy seed: the steamed bun holds an all-beef frankfurter, most often from Vienna Beef, whose founders got their start selling sausages to the crowds at Chicago's 1893 world's fair.

An Italian beef ordered "hot" is topped with what?

Giardiniera, an oil-packed relish of pickled peppers and vegetables, makes it 'hot'; 'sweet' means mild bell peppers, and 'dipped' means the whole sandwich is dunked in the meat's cooking juices.

Jeppson's Malört is flavoured with which bitter herb?

Wormwood is malört in Swedish; Swedish immigrant Carl Jeppson got round Prohibition in the 1920s by selling the bitter liqueur as a tonic against stomach worms.

Garrett Popcorn's Garrett Mix combines caramel corn with popcorn of which other flavour?

Cheese: the CheeseCorn and CaramelCrisp blend was long called the Chicago Mix, but a Minnesota sweet shop had trademarked that name and sued in 2014, and Garrett now sells it under its own name.

Which Chicago snack did the Rueckheim brothers register in 1896?

Cracker Jack got free publicity from the 1908 song 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game', which names it in the chorus, though its lyricist had not yet seen a big-league game himself.

Which trade union dyes the Chicago River green for Saint Patrick's Day?

The plumbers: the idea is said to date from 1961, when a union boss noticed a plumber's overalls stained green by the dye used to trace waste leaking into the river.

Which intersection is the zero point of Chicago's street-address grid?

State and Madison: since the 1909 grid reform, State Street divides east from west and Madison Street north from south, with eight blocks to a mile.

Developer Arthur Rubloff coined which 1947 nickname for North Michigan Avenue?

The Magnificent Mile: Rubloff, who with a partner bought or controlled most of the property from the river to Oak Street, coined the name to promote a plan to rebuild the avenue.

O'Hare Airport honours a hero of which war?

World War II: in February 1942 Navy pilot Butch O'Hare took on a formation of bombers alone to defend his aircraft carrier; Orchard Field was renamed for him in 1949 but kept its old code, ORD.

Which airline carries the great majority of passengers at Chicago's Midway Airport?

Southwest dominates Midway, once the nation's busiest airport, renamed in 1949 to honour the Battle of Midway.

The Haymarket affair of May 4, 1886 grew from a rally supporting what demand?

An eight-hour work day: the rally backed the nationwide eight-hour strike that began May 1, 1886; a dynamite bomb and the ensuing gunfire killed seven police officers.

Outside which Michigan Avenue hotel did police and protesters clash during the 1968 Democratic convention?

The Conrad Hilton, the Democrats' convention headquarters across from Grant Park, fronted the televised August 28, 1968 clash where crowds chanted 'the whole world is watching'.

Which ship rolled over at its Chicago River dock in 1915, killing 844 people?

Eastland rolled over at the wharf with more than 2,500 aboard for a Western Electric outing; the hull was later raised and served as the Navy gunboat USS Wilmette.

Which safety device did Carl Prinzler co-invent after Chicago's 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire?

Panic bar: many of the 602 dead were trapped at exit doors whose latches they could not work, so Prinzler helped devise a door bar that opens with a push; it went on sale in 1908.

Which electronic dance genre was born in Chicago clubs in the early 1980s, with DJ Frankie Knuckles as its godfather?

House music is usually said to take its name from the Warehouse, the Chicago club where Knuckles re-edited and stretched out records to keep his dancers moving.

Mayor Richard J. Daley also chaired which county's Democratic Party?

Cook County: Daley became party chairman in 1953, won the mayor's office in 1955 and held both jobs until he died in 1976, which made him the boss of the city's Democratic machine.

Which son of Mayor Richard J. Daley served as White House Chief of Staff?

William Daley, the youngest of the mayor's children, was Barack Obama's chief of staff in 2011-12; he ran for mayor himself in 2019 and finished third.

Whom did Harold Washington defeat in the 1983 Democratic mayoral primary?

Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley split the vote in the February 1983 primary, letting Harold Washington win with about 36 percent; he then beat Republican Bernard Epton to become the city's first Black mayor.

Chicago's 1919 race riot belonged to which wave of violence?

Red Summer violence struck cities across the country in 1919; Chicago's week of rioting began when a Black teenager drowned after being stoned at a segregated beach, and left 38 dead.

Which soul legend performs a musical number in The Blues Brothers?

Aretha Franklin plays the wife of guitarist Matt 'Guitar' Murphy and belts out 'Think' in their soul-food restaurant to stop him rejoining the band; he walks out anyway.

Who wrote the screenplay for Brian De Palma's The Untouchables?

David Mamet's 1987 script is mostly invention: it has Eliot Ness throw Capone's enforcer Frank Nitti off a courthouse roof, though the real Nitti lived until 1943.

Who made his feature directorial debut with the 2002 film Chicago?

Rob Marshall, a Broadway choreographer, made Chicago his first feature and choreographed it too; the film, with Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere, won Best Picture.

Which character in the musical Chicago was based on accused murderer Beulah Annan?

Roxie Hart: Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins covered Annan's murder trial and turned it into a 1926 play; a day after the jury acquitted her, Annan told reporters she was leaving her husband.

In The Bear, Carmy Berzatto takes over what kind of restaurant?

An Italian beef shop: Carmy inherits The Original Beef of Chicagoland from his late brother Mikey; Jeremy Allen White plays the chef, and the FX series debuted in June 2022.

Chicago Pile-1, the first artificial nuclear reactor, was built under the stands of what?

Stagg Field: the reactor was meant for a site outside the city, but building delays moved it under the stands of the abandoned football stadium, where Enrico Fermi's team made it self-sustaining on 2 December 1942.

Which social reformer co-founded Chicago's Hull House settlement in 1889?

Jane Addams opened the settlement with her friend Ellen Gates Starr in Charles Hull's old mansion on Halsted Street, offering immigrant neighbours a night school, kindergarten and public kitchen.

Outside which Chicago cinema was John Dillinger shot dead?

The Biograph was showing the gangster film Manhattan Melodrama on 22 July 1934; federal agents had been tipped off by Anna Sage, the so-called Woman in Red, who hoped to avoid deportation.

Which serial killer's Chicago building did newspapers dub the 'Murder Castle'?

H. H. Holmes, born Herman Mudgett, was hanged in 1896 after confessing to 27 murders, some of people who were still alive; many press tales of his trapdoors and torture chambers are now thought exaggerated or invented.

Which Loop artwork's creator refused a $100,000 fee, gifting it to the city in 1967?

Picasso's untitled sculpture: he supplied only a steel model about 42 inches tall; United States Steel built the 50-foot version in Gary, Indiana, then took it apart and reassembled it on site.

Which Spanish artist designed Millennium Park's Crown Fountain?

Jaume Plensa filmed about 1,000 Chicagoans for the fountain's two 50-foot glass-brick towers; water spouts from their pursed lips.

Which organisation led the 1894 Pullman boycott of trains?

The American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs refused to handle Pullman cars; President Cleveland sent federal troops, and Debs was jailed for defying an injunction.

Fort Dearborn, built in 1803, was named after which US official?

The Secretary of War: Henry Dearborn held the post under Jefferson when the fort went up in 1803; in 1812 its garrison was attacked as it evacuated, and the fort was burned down.

Which French explorers were guided to the Chicago Portage in 1673?

Jolliet and Marquette: returning up the Illinois River in 1673, Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette were shown the portage by Kaskaskia Illinois people, a short link between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds.

Which 1848 canal first linked Chicago to the Mississippi?

The Illinois and Michigan Canal ran 96 hand-dug miles from Bridgeport to LaSalle on the Illinois River, and helped make Chicago the country's transport hub before the railways took over.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a guide to what?

Writing and editing: the manual grew out of a style sheet that a university press's typesetters drew up in the 1890s to tame professors' handwritten manuscripts; the first edition followed in 1906.

How many red stars appear on the flag of Chicago?

Four six-pointed red stars stand for Fort Dearborn, the Great Fire and the city's two world's fairs; the flag had only two stars when it was adopted in 1917, and gained the others in 1933 and 1939.

Joe Louis won the heavyweight title in Chicago in 1937 by knocking out which champion, known as the Cinderella Man?

James J. Braddock floored Louis in the first round but was knocked out in the eighth; Louis went on to hold the title for nearly 12 years, a record reign.

The rock band The Big Thing took which new name in 1968, before shortening it a year later?

Chicago Transit Authority: the band took the name in 1968 and cut it to Chicago after its first album, when the real transit agency threatened legal action.

Which three Wrigley gum brands were all on sale from 1914 into the 21st century?

Spearmint, Doublemint and Juicy Fruit: the firm's founder began by selling soap, gave away baking powder and then gum as premiums, and each time switched to the giveaway when it proved more popular.

Playboy was founded in Chicago in 1953 partly with a $1,000 loan from whom?

Hugh Hefner's mother Grace lent $1,000 of the roughly $8,000 Hefner raised from 45 investors; the first issue, with Marilyn Monroe, appeared in December 1953 without a date on the cover.

Whitcomb Judson's 'clasp locker', shown at Chicago's 1893 world's fair, was the forerunner of which everyday fastener?

The zipper: Judson meant his clasp locker to replace bootlaces, but it was clumsy, often jammed and sold poorly; Gideon Sundback later reworked it into the reliable fastener we know.

Which Chicago mayor is the namesake of the city's central library, opened in 1991?

Harold Washington, a great lover of books, approved the design competition and bonds for a new central library in July 1987 and died that November; the city named the building after him.

The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, originally served as what?

The main library: the 1897 Beaux-Arts building housed Chicago's central public library for decades before becoming a free arts venue; its Tiffany glass dome is one of the largest in the world.

Which Chicago improv theatre launched Bill Murray and John Belushi?

The Second City, opened in 1959, borrowed its self-mocking name from the title of a 1952 New Yorker series about Chicago; its stage also fed the TV sketch show SCTV.

Grant Park's Lollapalooza began in 1991 as a farewell tour for which band?

Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell dreamed up the touring festival as his band's send-off; after its 2004 tour was cancelled for poor ticket sales, it was reborn in 2005 as a fixed weekend in Chicago.

Which animal's ejection from the 1945 World Series is said to have put a curse on the Cubs?

A goat: tavern owner Billy Sianis and his pet goat Murphy were asked to leave Game 4, and he is said to have declared the Cubs would win no more; they did not reach another World Series until 2016.

Which Near West Side street's open-air market gave its name to a Chicago sandwich of grilled Polish sausage?

Maxwell Street's market made the Polish famous, a sandwich widely credited to stand owner Jimmy Stefanovic; in 1994 the city moved the market to make way for a university campus.

What is the name of the tunnels and bridges that link more than 40 blocks of downtown Chicago?

The Pedway began in 1951 with one-block tunnels joining two subway lines, and grew piecemeal as public and private owners added stretches; it now runs for about five miles.