Singer, songwriter, artist and model Grace Slick was born in Highland Park on October 30, 1939. After graduating from high school, Slick attended Finch College and the University of Miami in Florida.

Her musical career began in 1964 in San Francisco after The Great Society was created with the help of her husband Jerry Slick and his brother Darby Slick. By 1965, the band was recording and had released a single, but in autumn of 1966, Grace left the band to join Jefferson Airplane as their lead singer.

The band went on to release “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” and both were placed on the “Rolling Stones” top 500 greatest songs of all time. After eight years together, the band split up, but Slick eventually reconvened with some of the band members and created Jefferson Starship. Together Jefferson Starship released a number of successful albums, and the “Dreams” album received a Grammy nomination.

Since retiring from music, Slick has followed her love of art and animals by painting on a full time basis, and many of the pieces she has created are available for purchase.

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Read more about the life of Grace Slick

The world’s busiest airport in 2014 first opened on this day in 1955. Named after Edward “Butch” O’Hare, a World War II pilot who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism, the airport was originally an Air Force base and manufacturing center for military aircraft. Once commercial flights began taking off, operations at nearby Midway Airport, once the world’s busiest in its own right, began to decrease. Midway would eventually go through a series of renovations and become a secondary reliever airport for the region. 

Today, O’Hare is a major hub for Chicago-based United Airlines as well as American Airlines and Air Choice One. The airport offers direct service to 210 destinations with an average of 2,400 flights per day.

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Read more about the recent opening of a new runway and control tower at O’Hare

Mason County, located in Central Illinois between Peoria and Springfield, is located in what many call the “Imperial Valley of the Midwest.” In contrast to other farming areas around the state, Mason County fields include a large amount of sand. With modern irrigation technology, the fields have become plentiful for crops not commonly found in Illinois, including popcorn.

Nearly 20,000 acres of land in Mason County is dedicated towards producing popcorn, more than any other county nationwide. The county also is number one statewide in the number of acres dedicated to vegetables, snap beans and watermelon.

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Nation’s top popcorn-producing county in Illinois (AgriNews)

Steven Nagel was born in Canton on October 27, 1946. After graduating from Canton High School, Nagel received a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois and joined the Air Force. He logged nearly 10,000 hours of flight time and served a one-year tour as flight instructor in Southeast Asia in 1971 and 1972 while serving in the military.

After receiving his master’s degree in mechanical engineering, Nagel joined NASA and became an astronaut in the summer of 1979. He first entered space aboard the Discovery on June 27, 1985, and would return three other times aboard the Challenger in 1985, Atlantis in 1991 and Columbia in 1993.

In total, Nagel spent 30 days, 1 hour and 34 minutes in space. He orbited the earth more than 100 times, performed repair missions on broken satellites and assisted in numerous scientific experiments and tests.

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Read more about the life and achievements of Steven Nagel

Nearly 5,000 runners turned out to the very first Chicago Marathon, then named the Mayor Daley Marathon, on September 25, 1977. The attendance made the inaugural marathon the largest marathon in the world at the time.

In 2006, marathon organizers teamed with four other races in Boston, London, Berlin and New York to create a series of qualifying competitions worldwide. Tokyo was recently added to that list, creating six World Marathon Majors.

The Bank of America 2015 Chicago Marathon was held October 11 and featured nearly 50,000 participants.

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Read more about the history of the Chicago Marathon