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Chicago Tribune
22-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: ‘Public Enemy No. 1' John Dillinger killed outside Biograph Theater
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 22, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1934: Chicago was in the grip of a weeklong heat wave, and the mercury that day reached 101. Twenty-three people died of the heat, but the death that drew the most attention was that of John Dillinger — a 31-year-old Indiana man who, on his birthday a month earlier, had been declared Public Enemy No. 1 by the FBI. In the heat of that July, movie houses advertised that they were 'air-cooled.' Perhaps that's what made Dillinger decide to take a prostitute named Polly Hamilton and Hamilton's landlady, Anna Sage, to the Biograph Theater (now known as Victory Gardens Theater) at 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., to see 'Manhattan Melodrama,' a gangster movie starring Clark Gable. Sage, a Romanian immigrant originally named Ana Cumpanas, operated a house of ill repute on the North Side. Vintage Chicago Tribune: John Dillinger's final days — and the 'Lady in red' who helped trap himOutside the theater, about 16 federal agents and East Chicago police officers took up positions. When the picture was over around 10:30 p.m., the trio left the theater and turned south on Lincoln Avenue in the direction of Sage's apartment on Halsted Street. The artificial lights of the marquee made her orange skirt appear deep red — earning her the nickname 'Lady in Red.' As the three walked south on Lincoln, Dillinger realized he was walking into a trap and pulled an automatic pistol from his pants pocket and bolted for the alley. Shots were fired. One bullet hit him in the back of the neck and exited through his right eye. That shot killed him. It apparently was fired by East Chicago police Sgt. Martin Zarkovich's .38-caliber revolver. The weapon was bought by a San Francisco man at a 1998 auction for more than $25,000. Thus came to an end Dillinger's long and infamous career in crime, including 11 months at the top of the country's Most Wanted list. Souvenir seekers dipped handkerchiefs in Dillinger's blood. Sage got a $5,000 reward for her role, but not the deal she wanted. She was deported to Romania in 1936 and died there 11 years later. 1970: A western lowland gorilla — named Kumba — was born for the first time in the 102-year history of Lincoln Park Zoo. '(Mom) Mumbi had no help at all with the delivery. She was her own midwife,' assistant zoo director Saul Kitchener said. 1979: Parts of Lake Shore Drive, the Eisenhower Expressway and seven bridges over the Chicago River were closed for filming of 'The Blues Brothers.' 1986: The Chicago Cubs fired ballgirl Marla Collins after she posed for a Playboy pictorial. 'Sportswriters pored over the photo evidence for hours Tuesday afternoon in the Wrigley Field pressbox, trying desperately to determine just how offensive the exposé was,' Tribune reporter Fred Mitchell wrote. 'Meanwhile, the Cubs won a game. The score was 6-4. We think.' Turtle's tale: Nickel, the Shedd Aquarium's endangered green sea turtle, marks her 20th year in Chicago2003: A 10-year-old, 124-pound rescued and rehabilitated green sea turtle — named Nickel due to the coin found lodged in her esophagus — was released into the Caribbean Reef exhibit at the Shedd Aquarium. 2012: Cubs third baseman turned broadcaster Ron Santo was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Santo, who died in 2010, told the Tribune in 2003 that the team's retirement of his uniform No. 10 was special. 'It will be my Hall of Fame,' he said. Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Chicago Tribune
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Jeffrey Dahmer arrested in Milwaukee
Today is Tuesday, July 22, the 203rd day of 2025. There are 162 days left in the year. Today in History: On July 22, 1991, police in Milwaukee arrested Jeffrey Dahmer, who later confessed to murdering 17 men and boys. Also on this date: In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln presented to his Cabinet a preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1933, Aviator Wiley Post landed at Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes. In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater, where he had just seen the Clark Gable movie 'Manhattan Melodrama.' In 1937, the U.S. Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court. In 1942, the Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp. In 1943, American forces led by Gen. George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily, during World War II. In 1975, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. In 1992, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison near Medellin. (He was slain by security forces in December 1993.) In 2011, Anders Breivik, a self-described 'militant nationalist,' massacred 69 people at a Norwegian island youth retreat after detonating a bomb in nearby Oslo that killed eight others in the nation's worst violence since World War II. In 2015, a federal grand jury indictment charged Dylann Roof, the young man accused of killing nine Black church members in Charleston, South Carolina, with 33 counts including hate crimes that made him eligible for the death penalty. (Roof would become the first person sentenced to death for a federal hate crime; he is on death row at a federal prison in Indiana.) In 2022, Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was convicted of contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (Bannon is currently serving his four-month sentence in federal prison.) Today's Birthdays: Actor Terence Stamp is 87. Singer George Clinton is 84. Actor-singer Bobby Sherman is 82. Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is 82. Movie writer-director Paul Schrader is 79. Actor Danny Glover is 79. Singer Mireille Mathieu is 79. Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks is 78. Rock singer Don Henley is 78. Author S.E. Hinton is 77. Film composer Alan Menken is 76. Jazz musician Al Di Meola is 71. Actor Willem Dafoe is 70. Actor John Leguizamo is 65. R&B singer Keith Sweat is 64. Folk singer Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls) is 62. Actor-comedian David Spade is 61. Actor Rhys Ifans is 58. Actor/singer Jaime Camil is 52. Singer Rufus Wainwright is 52. Actor Franka Potente is 51. Actor Selena Gomez is 33. NFL running back Ezekiel Elliott is 30.
