3 days ago
Today in Chicago History: White Sox flip the switch to host city's first MLB night game
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Aug. 14, according to the Tribune's archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
1939: The first Major League Baseball night game in Chicago took place on the South Side.
'It was as though one had suddenly walked into bright sunshine,' the Tribune reported after Charles Comiskey II flipped two switches at 8:25 p.m. to ignite Comiskey Park's new $140,000 'illuminating plant.' White Sox pitcher Johnny Rigney then threw a three-hitter and struck out 10 St. Louis Browns in a 5-2 win watched by more than 30,000 fans.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: How Wrigley Field got lights and why Cubs fans had to wait past 8-8-88 to raise 'W' flagCubs executives — including future Sox owner Bill Veeck — were also in attendance. Charles Drake, assistant to then-Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley, told the Tribune that Wrigley Field would not be lit until the team was certain their fans want night baseball there.
1945: At 6 p.m. Chicago time, President Harry S. Truman gathered reporters in the Oval Office of the White House to announce that Japan's Emperor Hirohito agreed to surrender. Victory over Japan (or V-J) Day marked the end of World War II.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: How the city celebrated war's end and welcomed its veterans homeWithin minutes of the announcement, tens of thousands of people gathered in the Loop to celebrate.
'They were noisy. They represented all ages and all classes. Elderly men and women were as numerous as bobby soxers,' the Tribune reported. 'The celebrants shouted, they sang and danced, but they were orderly. Taverns and cocktail lounges had closed their doors immediately.'
1981: Chicagoan Willye White, the first woman to qualify for five Olympic Games, was inducted into the Track and Field Hall of Fame. White qualified for the Olympics in 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972. She won a silver medal in the long jump as a 16-year-old at Melbourne in 1956. She later carried the U.S. flag in the Olympic parade and won 13 national titles.
1993: Eighteen-year-old Tricia Pacaccio was discovered by her father stabbed to death on the porch of their Glenview home. Police did not know the motive for the killing.
It wasn't until a decade later that investigators discovered that the DNA collected from her fingernails belonged to Michael Gargiulo, a neighbor who had moved to Los Angeles and was charged with Pacaccio's death in 2011. A jury found him guilty in three brutal knife attacks there in 2019. Gargiulo was extradited to Illinois in September 2024, to stand trial on charges of murder in the Glenview teen's slaying.
2004: What have come to be known as the 'Tinley Park lights' were seen as well as photographed by hundreds of people not only in Tinley Park but Oak Forest, Orland Park, Frankfort and Mokena, making it one of the better documented UFO phenomena in recent history.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: 'Close encounters' with UFOs in Illinois!!!!!All reports of the sightings described three red or white lights in a triangular pattern that moved in unison, hovered for up to 30 minutes and made no audible sound.
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