Today in Chicago History: Tribune reporters among last American journalists to leave Vietnam after Saigon falls
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 30, 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: 91 degrees (1942)
Low temperature: 30 degrees (1873)
Precipitation: 2.22 inches (2003)
Snowfall: 0.1 inches (1907)
1922: Pitcher Charlie Robertson threw the first perfect game for the Chicago White Sox.
1926: Aviatrix Bessie Coleman died while practicing for a performance in Jacksonville, Florida. Her Jenny aircraft turned over, dropping Coleman out of the aircraft at about 2,000 feet. She plummeted to the ground and died.
Funerals were held for Coleman in Jacksonville, Orlando and Chicago, where 2,000 people crowded Pilgrim Baptist Church on May 7, 1926. Coleman was buried in Lincoln Cemetery, and for several years, pilots dropped floral tributes to her from the sky.
Bessie Coleman Drive at O'Hare International Airport is named in her honor and a postage stamp featuring her image was released in 1995.
1975: Tribune correspondents Ronald Yates — who was one of the last American journalists to leave Phnom Penh when the Cambodian capital fell to insurgents just weeks earlier — and Philip Caputo lost contact with the newspaper in South Vietnam just before Saigon was overtaken by communist North Vietnam.
'April 29, 1975, is a day I will never forget, not only because I wasn't sure if I would get out of Vietnam in one piece but because I still consider it one of the greatest betrayals in American history – the disastrous and shameful exodus from Afghanistan in 2021 notwithstanding,' Yates recalled in his blog about the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
Yates and Caputo had been evacuated via helicopter, then delivered to the vessel off the South Vietnamese coast and taken to the Philippines. Yates' first story post-evacuation was about the 'confusion and uncertainty' in the American embassy's last days in Saigon.
1987: Less than 1 ½ years after overseeing raids on taxi drivers in the U.S. illegally, Chicago district director for immigration services A.D. Moyer detailed plans to open four centers to help immigrants with paperwork to become legal U.S. residents.
The effort was part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, a law passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan to offer a path to legal residence for people in the U.S. illegally since Jan. 1, 1982.
2007: Lisa Stebic, mother of two, was last seen by her husband Craig Stebic.
That same day, her divorce attorney sent her papers to have her husband evicted from the home they shared in Plainfield, though Craig Stebic said he knew nothing about that. The next day, she was reported missing by Craig Stebic.
There were massive searches, billboards, hotlines, rewards, and television appearances. Then former WMAQ-Ch. 5 reporter Amy Jacobson accepted an invitation to speak with Craig Stebic and swim with him and his kids at the Stebics' backyard pool.
Lisa Stebic has not been found. Though no one has ever been officially declared a suspect, investigators said then that they consider Craig Stebic the sole person of interest in the case. He has not been charged.
2015: President Barack Obama selected Chicago as the site of his library and museum.
The presidential center is under construction in Jackson Park and slated to open in 2026.
Also in 2015: Chicago hosted the NFL draft for the first time since December 1963. With the No. 7 pick in the first round, the Chicago Bears selected West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White.
2021: Arlington Park opened for its last season. The horse track closed its gates on Sept. 25, 2021.
The Chicago Bears finalized a deal to buy the site in February 2023.
2022: Dinkel's Bakery, open since 1922 and owned by three generations of the Dinkel family, who made countless cakes to celebrate and grieve over the decades, closed at 3329 N. Lincoln Ave.
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