Today in Chicago History: Captain Bill Pinkney becomes first Black person to circumnavigate the globe solo
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 98 degrees (1911)
Low temperature: 40 degrees (1994)
Precipitation: 1.31 inches (2018)
Snowfall: Trace (2011)
1919: Under headline 'TRIBUNE HAS TREATY,' Tribune scooped the world with details of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. It was the Tribune who presented the U.S. Senate with the original copy of the treaty, setting the newspaper apart from other publications at the time.
1930: As Tribune police reporter Alfred 'Jake' Lingle walked toward the stairway to the Illinois Central Railroad station at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue — clutching a copy of the Racing Form that he bought at the adjoining newsstand — he was shot in the head and fell over dead.
Splashed across the Tribune's front page the next morning, was the headline: 'OFFER $30,000 FOR ASSASSIN.'
But as details of Lingle's life subsequently dribbled out, the narrative changed dramatically, leading to a quite different headline: 'Tribune reporter was on the take, big time.'
1992: Chicagoan Bill Pinkney sailed into Boston Harbor having circumnavigated the globe all by himself, the third American and the first Black person to have accomplished the feat.
Armed with a satellite phone, an array of prepared foods, a stack of books and a Sony Walkman, Pinkney traveled from Boston to Bermuda and then to the British Virgin Islands, Brazil, Cape Town, South Africa, and across the Indian Ocean to Tasmania. After that, he sailed across the South Pacific around Cape Horn to Uruguay before turning north again to Bermuda.
During his voyage, Pinkney experienced some harrowing moments, but no brushes with total disaster.
'I have not had any near-death experiences, thank goodness,' he told the Tribune in 1992. 'I was caught in a lightning storm between Argentina and Uruguay. For four hours, the lightning was hitting like mad all around me. I was the tallest thing.'
It took Pinkney 22 months to complete the 27,000-mile circumnavigation.
2010: Patrick Kane sealed the Chicago Blackhawks' first Stanley Cup since 1961, with a goal 4 minutes, 6 seconds into overtime of Game 6 against the Philadelphia Flyers.
WGN-AM 720's John Wiedeman made the radio call: 'It's in the back of the net! The Hawks have won the Stanley Cup! Blackhawk fans around the world, you've endured 49 years of frustration, but your patience has finally paid off! Sweet Home Chicago!''
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