103 years ago this week, construction was finished on Chicago’s Wrigley Field. It cost $250,000 to build the field, which opened as Weeghman Park. Back in 1914, the field was home to the upstart Federal League team, the Chicago Whales. At this time, the Cubs were playing at Chicago’s West Side Grounds.

Weeghman Park had a seating capacity of 14,000 with four acres of Kentucky bluegrass blanketing the outfield. Then in 1915, the Federal League disbanded. The Chicago Cubs took advantage of the opening and moved in to the new park, shortly thereafter naming it Cubs Park.

In the 1920s, the Cubs began renovating the field. During the 1922-1923 off season, wooden bleachers were installed and the capacity increased to 20,000. Then in 1926, the field’s name was changed from Cubs Park to Wrigley Field in honor of team owner William Wrigley, Jr.

It wasn’t until 1937 that some of Wrigley Field’s most famous features were added, including the 27- by 85-foot manually-operated scoreboard, the outfield bleachers and the signature ivy.

Several seating additions throughout the years have led to the current game-day capacity of more than 38,000. Although many renovations have taken place during Wrigley Field’s 103 year history, the field still looks largely the same as it did in 1914. Wrigley’s old-time charm is just one of the countless reasons why fans keep coming back year after year.

On March 9, 1832, 23-year-old Abraham Lincoln announced he would run for the Illinois State Legislature as a member of the Whig Party. During Lincoln’s race, he ran on a platform centered on improving navigation of the Sangamon River. He was also determined to bring more revenue to the region.

Most of Lincoln’s campaign was spent serving in the Black Hawk War. He joined the militia in April and served two months without seeing the battlefield.  While in the militia, Lincoln was elected by his comrades as their captain, an honor he said which gave him "more pleasure than any I have had since."

When election votes were announced in August, Lincoln had finished eighth in a field of thirteen candidates. He received 277 of 300 votes from his own district.

Two years later Lincoln returned to campaigning and on August 4, 1834 he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly.

Click here to read Abraham Lincoln's first political announcement.

On this day in 1868, University of Illinois first opened its doors for classes. Then called the Illinois Industrial College, it was the first publicly-funded institution of higher education and the only land grant college in the state. Initially , the school offered mainly agricultural courses. The college had only two faculty members and 77 students enrolled on its first day of classes, but quickly grew. Later that year, the College of Fine and Applied Arts and the College of Engineering were established.

In 1871, The Daily Illini printed its first campus newspaper.
Today it is the longest-running college paper in the country.

It wasn’t until 1885 that the state of Illinois began investing in the college and the school’s name was changed to University of Illinois. With state funding, the school began offering a wider range of courses. Since then, the University of Illinois has produced more than ten Nobel Prize winners and sixteen Pulitzer Prize winners.

Today, the University of Illinois has more than 40,000 students and 18 colleges. It boasts the second-largest college library in the country, after Harvard University, and the College of Engineering is consistently ranked among the top five in the world.

Happy 149th birthday, University of Illinois!

On Feb. 22, 1983, Harold Washington won the Democratic primary election for Chicago mayor, defeating incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne, Richard M. Daley and other candidates. He went on to be elected the 51st mayor of Chicago that April and served as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

Harold Washington was born on April 15, 1922, in Chicago to Roy Lee Washington Sr., a lawyer and Methodist minister, and Bertha Jones Washington, a singer. He was the youngest of four children. Washington attended DuSable High School before he was drafted into the Army in 1942. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps unit of engineers, where he earned the rank of First Sergeant.