John Marshall Hamilton was the 18th Governor of Illinois, serving from 1883 to 1885. Born in Union County, Ohio, Hamilton became interested in politics at a young age, joining the Wide Awakes when he was thirteen and the Union Army four years later. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University he studied law and was admitted to the bar. A notable attorney in Bloomington, Illinois, Hamilton was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1876. He served there until 1881, when he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois on a ticket with Shelby Moore Cullom. When Cullom resigned after election to the United States Senate, Hamilton became Governor of Illinois. He was not selected as a candidate for re-election, but did serve that year as a delegate to the 1884 Republican National Convention. He spent the rest of his life as an attorney in Chicago, where he died in 1905.
University of Illinois Chicago School of Law is a public law school in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1899, the school offers programs for both part-time and full-time students, with both day and night classes available, and offers January enrollment.
Myra Colby Bradwell was an American publisher and political activist. She attempted in 1869 to become the first woman to be admitted to the Illinois bar to practice law, but was denied admission by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1870 and the United States Supreme Court in 1873, in rulings upholding a separate women's sphere. Bradwell had founded and published Chicago Legal News from 1868, reporting on the law and continued that work. Meanwhile, influenced by her case, in 1872 the Illinois legislature passed a state law prohibiting gender discrimination in admission to any occupation or profession.
Thomas L. Kilbride is an American judge who served on the Supreme Court of Illinois from 2000 to 2020. Kilbride served as Chief Justice of the court from October 2010 through October 25, 2013. He was elected to the Illinois Supreme Court Justice for the Third District in 2000 and elected Chief Justice by his colleagues in October 2010 for a three-year term. After losing a retention election in 2020, his tenure on the court ended in December 2020.
The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago is the official organization of the Episcopal Church in Chicago and Northern Illinois, US. The diocese is headed by Bishop Paula Clark, who is the first woman and first African-American to lead the diocese. The diocese was previously served by Jeffrey Lee, who served as bishop until December 31, 2020. The mother church of the diocese is St. James Cathedral, which is the oldest Episcopal congregation in the city of Chicago.
The State Farm Holiday Classic, named after the title sponsor State Farm Insurance, is one of the largest co-ed, high school holiday basketball tournaments in the United States, with 64 teams. Held annually for four days following Christmas and dubbed "The Best Basketball This Side of March", the Classic is held at numerous college and high-school venues throughout Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. In 2017 the tournament will be played December 27–30.
George Neves Leighton was an American judge who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He was known for taking cases related to housing, voting, and jury service, especially if these cases were directly impacted by injustice, particularly racism.
National Weather Service Chicago, currently based in Romeoville, Illinois, is a weather forecast office responsible for monitoring weather conditions for 23 counties in Northern Illinois, the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. The Army Signal Service established the first federal weather office in the region in Chicago on October 15, 1870. During May 1894 the Chicago Weather Bureau was given a new forecast area extending from the Great Lakes region all the way to the Rocky Mountains. The current National Weather Service Chicago is located in Romeoville and is in charge of issuing local forecasts and weather warnings for the Chicago area. It is one of only two National Weather Service offices in Illinois, the other being National Weather Service Central Illinois in Lincoln, Illinois. The National Weather Service Chicago forecast office is located adjacent to the Lewis University Airport in Romeoville, Illinois.
Evelyn Sanguinetti is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th lieutenant governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. She previously served on the Wheaton City Council. Sanguinetti announced her candidacy for the 2020 election in Illinois's 6th congressional district, challenging first-term Democratic incumbent Sean Casten, but dropped out on October 11, 2019.
The history of the Jews in Illinois dates back to 1793, when John Hays, the region's first postmaster, settled in Cahokia from his native New York. The most prominent Jew in Illinois' early days was Abraham Jonas (politician), who moved to Quincy from Cincinnati in 1838. In 1842 he was elected to the Illinois Legislature, where he met Abraham Lincoln, and became his lifelong friend. Another early Jewish settler was Cap. Samuel Noah, the first Jewish graduate of West Point, who taught school at Mount Pulaski, Illinois in the late 1840s.
The 2018 elections for the Illinois House of Representatives took place on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 to elect representatives from all 118 districts. The winners of this election served in the 101st General Assembly, with seats apportioned among the states based on the 2010 United States census. The Democratic Party has held a House majority since 1997. The inauguration of the 101st General Assembly occurred on Wednesday January 9, 2019. The Democrats flipped 8 seats while Republicans flipped 1 seat, resulting in a net gain of 7 seats for the Democratic caucus.
There were a series of George Floyd protests in Illinois. Demonstrations and protests were held in at least 30 communities around the state, with major demonstrations happening in Chicago.
