Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 27, 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: 87 degrees (2021)
Low temperature: 29 degrees (1945)
Precipitation: 2.13 inches (1959)
Snowfall: 2.5 inches (2019)
1926: A “machine gunner” made an early appearance in Chicago. Jim Doherty and Tom Duffy, members of the West Side O’Donnell gang, and William H. McSwiggin, an assistant state’s attorney whose association with the O’Donnell gang has “never been explained,” were shot and killed in front of the Pony Inn in Cicero.
The shooter was rumored to be none other than Al Capone. The infamous gangster, who had set up shop in Cicero, quickly became a prime suspect but initially was nowhere to be found. Upon surfacing, he was arrested but denied having it in for McSwiggin.
“I didn’t kill him,” Capone reportedly said. “I liked the kid.”
Soldiers carry Sewell Avery, chairman of the board of Montgomery Ward & Co., out of the building on April 27, 1944, after he was removed from his own office by the army on instructions of Atty. Gen. Biddle. Avery had defied the department of commerce when it tried to take over the huge plant. (Fred Giese/Chicago Tribune)
1944: Sewell Avery, chairman of Montgomery Ward & Co., refused to renew a union contract on orders of the War Labor Board. That’s when the feds moved in — literally — and moved Avery out, still seated in a chair as though he were at his desk. (He did stand up for the elevator ride.)
Avery didn’t get his company back till 1945. Then, fearing a postwar depression, he refused to expand along with his competitors, and Wards hopelessly lost ground.
Larry Demery, left, and Daniel Green, charged with murdering James Jordan, father of NBA star Michael Jordan, leave the courthouse in Lumberton, North Carolina, after a hearing on Oct. 5, 1993. (Jim Bounds/AP)
1995: Larry Martin Demery pleaded guilty to the July 1993 murder of James Jordan, Michael Jordan’s father. Demery agreed to testify against Daniel Green at trial in a move to avoid the death penalty. Demery was sentenced in May 1996 to life in prison.
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert leaves the federal court after being sentenced to 15 months in prison at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on April 27, 2016, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
2016: Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was sentenced in federal court in Chicago to 15 months in prison, sex offender treatment, two years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
A memorial is set up near the Joliet Township home where 17-month-old Semaj Crosby was found dead on April 27, 2017. (José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)
2017: Two days after she had been reported missing, the body of 16-month-old Sema’j Crosby was found wedged underneath a couch inside her Joliet Township home. The case remains open.
First-round Bears draft pick Mitch Trubisky is introduced at Halas Hall in Lake Forest on April 28, 2017. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)
Also in 2017: “Ten years from now, every Bears fan will still be talking about Thursday night and that jaw-dropping moment this football-crazed city will never forget,” Tribune reporter Dan Wiederer wrote.
Why did the Bears draft Mitch Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson?
The Bears traded away a massive amount of draft currency, sending the 49ers a four-pack of picks — Nos. 3, 67 and 111 in that year’s draft plus a 2018 third-rounder — to slide up one peg to No. 2 on the draft board to draft Mitch Trubisky, a quarterback at North Carolina.
Trubisky’s tumultuous time with the Bears ended after four seasons.
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