Today, in Illinois history, Father Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and support crew went down the Mississippi River to be the first explorers in what would become the state of Illinois.

They left from Mackinac Island to attempt to find the Northwest Passage to China. Though they were unsuccessful in their goal of finding the Northwest Passage, they were able on their way back up the Mississippi to tour the Illinois River Valley.

They visited an area near modern day Peoria. There they met with a tribe of Kaskaskia Indians. The tribe called themselves “Illiniwek.”  The tribe was warring with other tribes but took in Marquette and Jolliet as their guests and showed them their way of life.

Marquette and Jolliet both were impressed with the Illinois River valley. “We have seen nothing like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods and wild cattle,” they said.

Later, Marquette would return to Illinois country to set up a Jesuit mission in Illinois.

In honor of the late great architect's birthday, today's did you know feature is Frank Lloyd Wright.

Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright spent a large part of his adult life in Illinois, leaving behind many architectural achievements.

Wright was born in Wisconsin in 1867, moving to Chicago when he was 20 to work for architect Joseph Silsbee. Over the next 40 years, Wright designed a multitude of Chicago-area buildings, most notably his Oak Park home. He also designed the renowned Winslow House in River Forest, the Robie House in Chicago and the Unity Temple in Oak Park.

His style of design was known as the “Prairie School” of architecture, characterized by a reliance on the use of horizontal lines and overhanging eaves.

Wright’s work also includes the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, the Bradley House in Kankakee and a host of homes and other buildings in Oak Park.

If you want to read a great American fantasy, science fiction, horror or mystery novel, one of Ray Bradbury’s books may be the choice for you.

Bradbury, born in Waukegan, is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet. He is well known for Fahrenheit 451, which some call his masterpiece. He is also known for books such as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.

Bradbury’s works won him an Emmy Award and a nomination for an Academy Award. In 2004, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He was the honoree for his “incomparable contributions to American fiction.” He also has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the many movies based off of his books.

He ended up writing almost 50 books, as well as poems and essays. He even wrote the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick.

Learn more:

Visit Ray Bradbury’s official website (http://www.raybradbury.com/)
Interested in buying one of his books? Browse the full list (http://www.raybradbury.com/books/books.html)

During the summer of 1893, Chicago hosted its first World’s Columbian Exposition – more commonly known as the World’s Fair.

The event, which ran from May through October, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World.

Among the most famous inventions featured at the 1893 World’s Fair was the Ferris wheel built by engineer George Ferris. The wheel was 250 feet tall and had 36 cars, each of which could hold 60 riders, or more 2,000 people per ride.

The 1893 fair also helped to popularize a variety of American food products, including Aunt Jemima pancake mix, Juicy Fruit gum, Cracker Jacks and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

In all, 46 nations participated in the fair, which drew about 27 million visitors during its six-month run. The best attendance day was on Chicago Day, Oct. 9, 1893, when more than 700,000 people enjoyed the fair.

The 1893 World’s Fair cost more than $27 million, not including more than $3 million that was spent by state, federal and foreign governments on their own exhibit buildings. The Jackson Park lakefront site alone cost $5 million to construct. More than 630 acres of Chicago property was used for the fair.

A few of the buildings constructed for the fair remain, including the Palace of Fine Arts, which now is home to the Museum of Science and Industry, and the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building, which today is the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dr. James D. Watson is most famous for his work with Francis Crick in the discovery of the genetic blueprint for life. It was on April 25, 1953, that Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins published their groundbreaking study on DNA.

James Watson was born in Cook County on April 6, 1928, and raised by his family in Chicago, attending South Shore High School. He enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of 15 and graduated in 1947, later attending Indiana University and earning a Ph.D. in zoology in 1950.

He would continue to publish throughout his life. In 1968, he published “The Double Helix,” which gave his account of the discovery of DNA. The book would later be considered one of the 100 best non-fiction books by the Modern Library Publishing House. He is also credited with creating the format for virtually all modern-day science textbooks.

Watson would later run the U.S. government’s Human Genome Project from 1988 to 1992.

For more information about James Watson:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-bio.html