Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Sept. 16, 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: 92 degrees (1955)
- Low temperature: 37 degrees (1984)
- Precipitation: 1.16 inches (1980)
- Snowfall: None
1943: A war bond rally at Soldier Field featured Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire, Harpo Marx and more Hollywood performers who raised more than $200 million.
1960: Former University of Chicago athletic director Amos Alonzo Stagg quit coaching football — at age 98. The Yale graduate guided the Maroons from 1892 until 1932, when he reached the school’s retirement age of 70. Stagg was offered a department position, but declined and instead accepted a coaching job at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. He finished his career at Stockton Junior College.
Stagg died in 1965 at age 102. The American Football Coaches Association award is named after Stagg and the world’s fifth tallest tree was renamed in his honor in 1960.
1973: A 10-month-old female gorilla named Pat — who was recovering from brain surgery — and a snow leopard cub were found in an Uptown apartment one day after they were taken by teenagers from Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.
“They said they were animal lovers and they wanted these animals,” police investigator James Biebel told the Tribune. “They didn’t try to hide them. The snow leopard was in the bedroom and the gorilla was playing in the living room.”
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