Between 2012 and 2013, research and development spending at Illinois universities grew faster than in any other state. Illinois’ institutions of higher learning spent a record $2.4 billion trying to drive science and engineering innovation.

“Every great architect is—necessarily—a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” – Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1887, 20 year-old Frank Lloyd Wright moved to Illinois to study under the famed Adler & Sullivan architectural firm. Wright helped Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan reshape Chicago’s landscape after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. For six years, he helped restore the city’s skyline and make Chicago an architectural capital.

With 115 skyscrapers, ranging from the 1924-built Chicago Temple Building to the recently topped out Loews North Park Drive building, Chicago is a world leader in the number and style of its skyscrapers.

The history of skyscrapers in Chicago goes back to 1885 with the construction of the iconic Home Insurance Building, widely recognized as the world’s first skyscraper.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Loyola University Medical Center are nationally ranked for cardiology and heart surgery. They can thank Daniel Hale Williams, an African-American medical pioneer who performed the first successful open-heart surgery on a patient right here in Illinois.

Daniel Hale Williams, originally born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania in 1856, moved to Chicago as a young aspiring surgeon. He began as an apprentice for an accomplished surgeon and studied at Chicago Medical College.