Today in Chicago History: ‘The circus begins.' Michael Jordan signs a baseball contract with the White Sox.
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 7, according to the Tribune's archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 59 degrees (1925)
Low temperature: Minus 10 degrees (1875)
Precipitation: 1.34 inches (1881)
Snowfall: 8.6 inches (1933)
1865: Gov. Richard J. Oglesby signed a bill repealing Illinois' 1853 'Black Law' that prohibited Black people from coming into the state.
The animal died of pneumonia the following year. It is now part of the Field Museum's taxidermy collection.
1968: Nine people, including four firefighters, were killed when a series of late-afternoon explosions ripped through the general offices of Mickelberry Food Products Co. on the South Side. The fire started when a gasoline tanker truck making a delivery in the alley behind the plant started leaking. The gas flowed through a doorway and into the basement, where the building's boiler was located.
1969: Led Zeppelin's Chicago debut at Kinetic Playground came less than two months after its first American gig and three weeks after its first U.S. show as a sole headliner that, of all places, happened in Iowa City, Iowa, when the band stepped up after Count Basie canceled his date at the students' union.
The two February performances at Kinetic Playground marked the first of eight the band played in 1969 alone at the venue that stood at 4812 N. Clark St. Sandwiched in the middle of a lineup that featured headliner Vanilla Fudge and opener Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin drew positive reviews from the Tribune in its 'The Sound' column, branded 'music and radio: for young listeners.'
1987: Michael Jordan soared to his first of back-to-back slam dunk-contest victories at the NBA All-Star Weekend in Seattle.
1994: Jordan signed a minor-league deal with the Chicago White Sox four months after he retired from professional basketball.
Want more vintage Chicago?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Metallica's Smash Brings The Band To A Milestone For The First Time
Metallica's catalog is filled with the kind of rock smashes any band would be lucky to claim. The Grammy-winning group has produced more hits than most acts could ever dream of – especially in the hard rock space – but when it comes to pure purchases by American listeners, one title stands out above the rest. 'Enter Sandman' is a bestseller yet again in the United States. The track currently appears on a trio of Billboard rankings dedicated purely to sales, and this frame is especially notable for the tune. Metallica's timeless cut lifts one spot on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, earning its one-hundredth stay on the list of the bestselling rock-only tracks in the country. The track is so massively popular that it has spent more time on the tally than Metallica's other 13 charting successes combined. The group's second-longest running entry is 'Master of Puppets,' which so far has managed just seven appearances on the list. While 'Enter Sandman' is easily Metallica's longest-charting release on the Rock Digital Song Sales roster, it doesn't stand as the band's highest-peaking. Both 'Master of Puppets' and 'Lux Æterna' peaked at No. 2 in 2022. 'Enter Sandman,' meanwhile, stalled at No. 3 in 2021 and has yet to surge any higher. Metallica is one of just three acts on the 15-spot Rock Digital Song Sales chart at the moment that claims a more-than-100-week winner. 'Enter Sandman' joins 'The Sound of Silence' by Disturbed (329 weeks) and 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC, which this frame reaches 520 turns — exactly a decade — on the list. 'Enter Sandman' may be rising slightly on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, but that's actually the American tally where it performs the worst. It appears at No. 3 on the Hard Rock Streaming Songs roster, and the tune also dips slightly to No. 5 on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales list.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bruises, Threats And Obama-Shaped MDMA: 7 Shocking Revelations From Diddy's Trial
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking and racketeering trial is well underway, with witnesses painting a picture of a violent and controlling Combs. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have accused the media mogul of using his money and prestige to run a criminal enterprise since at least 2004. He was indicted on five federal charges: one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs' apparent downfall comes after his ex, R&B singer Casandra 'Cassie' Ventura filed a damning lawsuit against him in November 2023. The lawsuit was settled quickly and quietly the following day, but additional accusers came forward alleging that Combs had abused and/or sexually violated them. Some of the accusers were minors at the time of the alleged events. He has denied the allegations against him and pleaded not guilty to the charges. He also rejected a plea deal shortly before the trial started. Combs' attorneys have attempted to downplay the case against him as an attempt to bring down a thriving Black man. In the months that followed, federal authorities raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami, and CNN released a video showing Combs attacking Ventura in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. Combs, who was once celebrated as a beacon of Black male success, has been held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in September. The trial, which is not being televised or recorded, is expected to last around two months. Jury selection began on May 5. Opening statements occurred the following Monday. Many of the witnesses who have taken the stand essentially described Combs as evil. Kid Cudi called him a 'marvel supervillain;' Ventura said his 'eyes [would] go black;' and Bryana Bongolan, a friend to Ventura, said he called himself the 'devil.' If convicted, Combs could spend the rest of his life in jail. Here's a look at some of the most explosive and jarring moments from the trial. 'There was a line of questioning where your client was nodding vigorously and looking at the jury,' Judge Arun Subramanian told Combs' attorneys on June 5, according to NBC News. 'There should be no efforts to have any interactions with this jury.' The nodding the judge referred to came while Bongolan was on the stand. The judge said that Combs would be removed from the courtroom if he continued. Combs' lead attorney Marc Agnifilo told the judge that the interaction is 'not going to happen again.' 'This cannot happen again,' Subramanian reiterated. A pregnant Ventura took the stand for about a week at the beginning of the trial. At one point, she described what Combs called 'freak-offs.' 'It basically entails the hiring of an escort and setting up this experience so that I could perform for Sean,' Ventura said. The freak-offs allowed for Combs to 'watch me with the other person and actually direct us on what we were doing,' she added. 'Eventually it became a job for me, pretty much,' she claimed, adding that she had to personally reach out to the male escorts and had to participate in the freak-offs even if she was menstruating. She also claimed that he recorded the performances and used them as blackmail against her. Ventura described Combs during sexual encounters: 'His eyes go black. The version of him I was in love with was no longer there,' she said, according to The New York Times. Ventura also discussed being physically abused by Combs. Prosecutors showed the jury images of Ventura's injuries. Some of those images included bruises on her face, back and thigh, and a gash on her eyebrow, USA Today reported. Within two weeks of testifying, Ventura gave birth to her third child with her husband, Alex Fine. Kid Cudi, born Scott Mescudi, briefly dated Ventura in 2011. Mescudi testified on May 22 that Combs broke into his home when he was with Ventura and that he believes he set his luxury vehicle on fire with a Molotov cocktail. 'I'm going to be very candid,' Mescudi said while describing the break-in, according to Rolling Stone. 'I was like, 'Motherfucker, are you in my house?' And he said, 'I just want to talk to you.' I was like, 'I'm on my way over right now.' He was like, 'I'm here.'' But Mescudi did not find Combs when he arrived. He did, however, find that his dog was locked in a bathroom and that Christmas presents had been opened. He said Combs wanted to talk to him, but Mescudi said he responded by telling him, 'You broke into my house. You messed with my dog... Like, I don't want to talk to you.' Mescudi and Ventura stopped seeing each other in late December of 2011. 'The drama, it was just getting out of hand,' Mescudi testified. 'I kind of wanted to give her some space … for my safety, for her safety…' He also told the courtroom that he believed Ventura was 'playing' both him and Combs. Combs' former personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, David James, testified on May 19 that he personally acquired drugs for Combs before. James claimed that Combs used to take opiates during the day and ecstasy at night, according to CNN. Some of the ecstasy pills were shaped like former President Barack Obama, according to James. James also described Combs' drug use in more depth, including informing the jury of a 'medicine bag' that Combs brought around with him, according to Business Insider. 'There were probably 25 to 30 different pillboxes or pill bottles,' James said, according to BI. 'Some were like Advil, Tylenol. He had water pills to help him lose weight. He had Viagra in there. He had some pills that helped increase his sperm count, for example.' 'He did have ecstasy and Percocets in there, as well,' James added. Former member of the music groups Danity Kane and Diddy—Dirty Money, Dawn Richard, testified on May 16 that Combs compelled people in his orbit to stay quiet because 'where he comes from, people who say something can end up missing.' Richard described watching Combs beat Ventura when she took too long to cook his dinner, Business Insider reported. 'He took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her in the head, and she fell to the ground,' Richard testified. The next day, Combs told Richard and Ventura that 'what we saw was passion, and it was what lovers in a relationship do.' He also told them 'he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers,' according to Business Insider's report. Richard filed her own lawsuit against Combs in September 2024. She accused him of sexual assault, retaliation, threatening to end her life and refusing to pay her. Capricorn Clark had an on-and-off working relationship with Combs between 2004 and 2018, at one point working as his former assistant and as the marketing head for Sean Jean at another. She testified on May 27 that Combs kidnapped her at gunpoint in 2011 to kill Mescudi when he learned that Ventura was dating him. According to Clark, Combs came to her home in the early morning with a gun out, told her to get dressed, and said, 'We're going to go kill [Mescudi],' according to NPR. They went inside of Mescudi's house while he was not home, which Mescudi described in his own testimony. Clark claimed that Combs threatened to kill her if she informed the authorities. In a separate instance, Clark said Combs locked her in a building in Manhattan and subjected her to numerous lie detector tests when some of his jewelry went missing, NPR also reported. She said the man testing her told her that she would be 'thrown into the East River' if she failed. 'I was petrified,' Clark said. Mia, the pseudonym for a former assistant for Combs who he tasked with keeping an eye on Ventura, while taking the stand on May 29, described an instance in which Combs attacked Ventura at Prince's house in 2011 or 2012, according to The New York Times. 'Cass and I debated like little kids if we should sneak out of the house,' Mia reportedly said. But Combs showed up at the party. 'Oh, crap,' Mia recalled thinking when she saw her then-boss. 'Me and Cass just booked it.' When Combs caught them, he beat Cassie until a security guard for Prince interfered, according to USA Today. Mia claimed she was fired the next day for 'being insubordinate.' While on the stand, she also testified that Combs sexually assaulted her on more than one occasion. 'I couldn't tell him no about a sandwich — I couldn't tell him no about anything,' she said, according to the Times. 'There was no way I could tell him no, because then he would know that I thought what he was doing was wrong and then I would be a target.' Need help? Visit RAINN's National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's website. Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Trump Weighs In On Possible Sean 'Diddy' Combs Pardon: 'He Used To Really Like Me' Cassie's Lawsuit Against Diddy Started A Movement Many Didn't See Coming 'Marvel Supervillain': Kid Cudi Describes Meeting With Diddy After Molotov Cocktail Hit His Porsche
CNET
2 hours ago
- CNET
You Probably Hate This Masterpiece Sci-Fi Show. Here's Why You Need to Rewatch It in 2025
You may be thinking, "Really, Macy? You're going to the mat over a show that came out over 20 years ago?" Well, yes. Because it simply isn't given the respect it deserves. Like many Americans, my family and I loved our nights huddled around the TV to watch our favorite TV shows live. For us, that meant American Idol, Dexter and, of course, ABC's network hit, Lost. There's a good chance you watched Lost in the early 2000s, too. And there's an even better chance you think it got bad. Or you have some sort of perspective that it started strong but went off the rails after the first three seasons. Somewhere along the way -- maybe when the flash-sideways began, or when a smoke monster turned into a man, or when you realized there wasn't going to be a clear-cut answer to every mystery -- you bailed. Maybe you saw the finale and thought it ruined the whole show. (More on that later.) I watched Lost when I was a kid, but hadn't revisited it for close to a decade. Until it came to streaming services, first Hulu and now Netflix and Disney Plus. One day, I decided to replay the pilot episode and, well, it transformed me into the person writing this 1,500-word defense. I binged the show and then immediately turned around and binged it again. I'm truly mad at myself for wasting so much time thinking this show was a disappointment. In truth, it's a glorious, ambitious near-masterpiece. It's my favorite show. That's why I'm writing this. I'm here to ask you to do something radical: Rewatch Lost in 2025. Yes, all of it. And this time, go in with fresh eyes -- see it not as a weekly network drama, but as a serialized, character-driven odyssey that, along with The Sopranos and Mad Men, paved the way for the prestige genre TV we obsess over now. Because the truth is, Lost wasn't a failure. It was just ahead of its time. Here's why. It's time to go back to the island for a 2025 rewatch. ABC's Lost Looking for more streaming recommendations? You should also watch my favorite movie, a historical drama packed with modern themes, for free now. No, the ending is not what you think The last thing I want to do is spoil the ending of a show I'm trying to get you to rewatch. But I feel like I need to address this early since one of the main reasons audiences ultimately turned on the show was a misconception about the ending. I'll tell you right now, spoilers be damned. They. Were. Not. All. Dead. The. Whole. Time. The idea that the characters were really all dead the whole series and that the island was just a purgatory-like state is completely untrue. It's been debunked by the creators of the show, the actors who starred in the show and the dialogue in the series finale itself. A twist ending like that -- revealing they had all died in the plane crash right at the start -- would be a horrible one. It would retroactively reduce the entire plot of the show to meaningless, empty nothingness. So, thankfully, that's not how it actually ended. Now, you can just enjoy the show knowing that it all matters. The cinematography of Lost is some of the best ever put to television. ABC's Lost TV in 2004 didn't look like Lost When Lost premiered in 2004, there was nothing like it on network television. A lush, cinematic sci-fi mystery shot on 35mm film, with a massive ensemble cast of mostly unknown actors and an evolving mythology? On ABC, of all places? In the era of CSI, Desperate Housewives, and the dozens of other cop shows and formulaic TV, Lost was a risk. Lost is a sci-fi show (I think a lot of people forget that) with horror and supernatural elements. It's serialized, meaning you must see each episode to understand the next one, unlike so many shows that were airing on network TV at the time. The show follows a group of drastically different people who have just survived a plane crash on a remote, tropical island that seems to harbor deep, dark mysteries. But each survivor has secrets of their own. And they must live together in order to survive. (I can vividly remember hearing protagonist Jack Shepard say, "If we don't learn to live together… we're gonna die alone.") These characters come together with their differences, their pasts (beautifully depicted in flashback scenes), their traumas, their hopes and their desires, to collectively navigate this horrible situation. What unfolds is six seasons of intense, heart-wrenching plot points that subvert expectations and are rich with themes of faith, spirituality, dualism, philosophy and the mystical. It's pretty normal for TV shows now to be cinematic. Shows like The Last of Us, Succession, Stranger Things and Severance all make use of big budgets, high-quality production, engrossing performances and teams of insanely talented writers. But Lost was doing that in 2004 on ABC, which means the showrunners were dealing with the many obstacles and restrictions of network television. For instance, the show's creators -- J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber and Damon Lindelof -- wanted Lost to only be three seasons, but ABC said no, and pushed them to do 10 seasons when they saw what a hit the show had become. They eventually negotiated down to the six seasons we have today. But that's twice the amount of runtime the original creators intended. Despite this, the writers crafted compelling story lines and introduced some of the most intriguing characters (Ben, Juliet, Jacob, Penny, Miles) into the later seasons. It's easy to forget that Lost was doing time jumps, shifting perspectives and emotional bottle episodes long before The Leftovers, Dark or Severance existed. It experimented with structure constantly: a flashback here, a flash-forward there, a time loop in season 5. Entire episodes would focus on side characters you hadn't seen in weeks. It was complicated, sure, but thrillingly so. The show trusted its audience to keep up, even when it was confusing. And yes, that led to frustration at the time, but trust me, it works much better now that Lost is on streaming services. It's a show that really should be binged, so that you can truly appreciate the nuance and hidden details of the writing. The things that made Lost so good at the time are why it hasn't been fully appreciated. It was simply ahead of its time. Small plot seeds would be introduced and then left unvisited for several episodes, making Lost a show that's perfect for binge-watching. ABC's Lost Lost indeed was a risk, but one that paid off in six seasons of wild, genre-bending storytelling and a gut-punch, emotional ending that will land as long as you give it another chance with an open mind. Read also: The 21 Best Sci-Fi TV Shows to Stream on Netflix It holds up in 2025 Part of what makes Lost such a rewarding rewatch in 2025 is that it doesn't feel dated. The series still looks and sounds incredible. Because it was filmed on 35mm, which can be upscaled and remastered. Plus, shot on-location in Hawaii, the series still looks gorgeous. Lost was shot on 35mm film, which means it can be upscaled and still look brand new 20 years later. ABC's Lost The performances of the 14 regularly recurring leads of the cast are absolutely brilliant, too. Even though this was a cast of mostly unknown actors at the time, they all, guest actors included, reached a caliber of performance that is still so rare to witness in a TV series. And the music is absolutely remarkable. Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles, Up, Coco, Inside Out) created what I think is the best TV score of all time for Lost. I mean, he used debris from the crashed plane from the pilot episode to create the unique, bizarre sounds you hear each episode. The score is a perfect fit for a unique storyline. More than anything else, Lost is a show that will make you feel. Lost is a show that is full of emotionally poignant moments. ABC's Lost Is every plotline perfect? No. Do the final seasons get a bit complex? Absolutely. But on balance, Lost is one of the most ambitious, strange, beautiful things ever put on television, and it is emotionally satisfying from start to finish. Lost opened the door for serialized sci-fi and genre storytelling on TV, especially character-first narratives with weird, metaphysical themes. What I'm saying is that without Lost, it's hard to imagine Severance, Stranger Things or other TV sci-fi faves. So if you haven't watched it since 2010 -- or if you've never watched it at all -- now's the time. The entire series is available to stream on Hulu, Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video for rent. Skip the Reddit threads. Forget the hot takes. Just hit play. And maybe, just maybe, you'll find that Lost didn't lose its way. We just didn't know how to watch it yet. For more, you can explore the 13 best sci-fi shows on Apple TV Plus and the 18 best sci-fi shows on Prime Video.
