Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Aug. 8, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: The paper’s role in the demise of Richard Nixon’s presidency after Watergate
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 100 degrees (1934)
- Low temperature: 52 degrees (1976)
- Precipitation: 2.35 inches (1977)
- Snowfall: Trace (1912)
1931: Several hundred performers — including Goliath the sea elephant — arrived to perform as part of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which became a fixture of summer in Soldier Field’s parking lot for decades.
1940: “Blond Tigress” Eleanor Jarman escaped from the women’s reformatory in Dwight. The mother of two boys had been serving 199 years as an accomplice to a murder her lover committed in Chicago.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Jailbreak!!!
Jarman’s family in Sioux City, Iowa, planned to use a bomb shelter to hide her, but she remained on the lam. Only once was she positively seen again — in a then-secret 1975 reunion with a handful of relatives.
1958: O’Hare became an international airport. When a TWA flight landed from Paris, its passengers were the first to be processed inside a customs depot that included immigration, public health and agricultural inspectors — services that weren’t previously available at the facility.
1974: Almost 7.5 million tickets were sold for the first Illinois State Lottery drawings, which took place starting at 10:30 a.m. on a stage at the edge of the racetrack at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. About 500 people, “sweating under the August sun,” assembled to watch the event. (It was not front page news, however, due to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.)
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Illinois Lottery’s first drawing took place 50 years ago
Lotto’s winning numbers were 15-12-16-18-04. The weekly Bonanza and Millionaire numbers were 697-192-352.
The biggest winner present was a 28-year-old electrician who had just finished wiring the stage. An estimated 35,000 people around the state won prizes of $20, $100 or $5,000.
Laws at the time prevented the lottery’s winning numbers from being broadcast live over radio and television. The Tribune began publishing the results following that first drawing — though no one in the newsroom was allowed to give the numbers over the telephone due to the laws.
1976: The Chicago White Sox wore shorts in the first game of a doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals, but refused to wear them for the nightcap.
The Sox also donned pajama-style jerseys in 1976, and wore them through 1981. The shorts, however, were short-lived. The players wore them in just three games that season including an Aug. 21-22, 1976, series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: The White Sox’s wild ride into the team’s 125th season
“It’s almost inconceivable that men dressed like little boys could give up 16 hits in six innings, trail the Samson-like Baltimore Orioles by six runs, yet still beat them in 12 innings, 11-10,” former Tribune baseball writer Richard Dozer wrote.
1977: “Mr. Cub” Ernie Banks was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: How Wrigley Field got lights and why Cubs fans had to wait past 8-8-88 to raise ‘W’ flag
1988: The first night game at Wrigley Field was scheduled. Rain, however, ended it after 3½ innings, barring it from being recognized as official.
2004: A tour bus for the Dave Matthews Band passing over the Chicago River unleashed a torrent of foul-smelling waste onto a tour boat below.
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