Chicago Stories

Skyscrapers

Chicago has long played a starring role in the development of the tall building. In the early days, architects such as Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler had to overcome mind-boggling obstacles, including the city’s soggy soil. Today, architects must find new ways to grab attention in a dense and intriguing skyline.

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Toy Town

Beanie Babies, Tinkertoys, Radio Flyer Wagons, Operation, Lite-Brite, and Lincoln Logs. These beloved children’s toys have one thing in common: They were all invented in Chicago. Over the decades, the city became the global epicenter of toy design, sparking innovation, business battles, and a cultural legacy that reached around the world.

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The World’s Fair of 1893

More than 40,000 laborers transformed Jackson Park from a swampy mudhole into a dazzling “White City” – a dreamscape of classic architecture, electricity, and other modern marvels that drew millions of visitors. Alongside landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, visionary architect Daniel Burnham created a city of grandeur and order.

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Marshall Field’s

“Give the Lady What She Wants.” It was legendary Chicago retail royalty Marshall Field who coined his eponymous store’s famous slogan. For more than 150 years, that’s exactly what thousands – tens of thousands – of loyal employees of Marshall Field & Company did.

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Iconic Foods

Chicago is one of the world’s great food cities, offering customers a seemingly inexhaustible feast, with everything from award-winning, one-of-a-kind, chef-driven restaurants to spectacular street food from food trucks and carts. Dig in to the dining rooms, kitchens, and street corners where Chicagoans have been eating since the city began.

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Rod Blagojevich

In 2008, then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (known by the nickname “Blago”) made national news for all the wrong reasons. After he was arrested by federal authorities at his Ravenswood Manor home, stunning accusations emerged. Prosecutors said Blagojevich had tried to sell Barack Obama’s vacant senate seat, and that he had sought millions of dollars from people with state business in all sorts of other scenarios.

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Inside the Tylenol Murders

On September 29, 1982, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove, Illinois, woke up in the morning with cold symptoms. Her parents gave her Tylenol to ease her discomfort. Hours later, Mary was dead. What followed was a string of seven Chicago-area deaths connected by one thing: Each victim had died shortly after taking Tylenol.

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Legendary Blizzards

Anyone who lives in the Windy City knows that wild weather is part of what makes Chicago, well, Chicago. But there were two blizzards that brought the city to its knees. The blizzard of January 1967 brought a record 23 inches of snow to Chicagoland, stopping the city in its tracks.

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House Music: A Cultural Revolution

Chicago’s secret is very much out in the open now: house music DJs headline clubs and festivals from London to Cape Town. But this electronic dance music was born behind closed doors at underground venues.

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Al Capone’s Bloody Business

During Prohibition in Chicago, infamous mobster Al Capone built his empire. His gang became sprawling criminal empire, often embattled in bloody conflicts that would cement Capone as one of America’s most notorious gangsters.

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When the West Side Burned

In the days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, columns of smoke rose above Chicago’s West Side. The murder of a man who preached nonviolence in the face of struggle ignited grief and rage as uprisings spread in cities across the United States with violence, looting, and fires.

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The Making of Playboy

Playboy, a brand now synonymous with sex, was launched by Hugh Hefner in the 1950s in Chicago. Hefner bought the iconic Playboy mansion in Chicago’s Gold Coast where his raucous parties became the stuff of legend. He also opened the first of 30 Playboy clubs in Chicago, outfitting cocktail waitresses in heels and bunny tails.

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The Young Lords of Lincoln Park

There was a time, from the late 1940s through the 1960s, when the now-upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood served as the beating heart of Chicago’s huge Puerto Rican community, and the base of operations for a band of Puerto Rican revolutionaries known as the Young Lords.

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Amusement Parks

Dive into the history of Chicago’s amusement parks and the role the city played in shaping the amusement industry. Explore Riverview Park, Ravinia, Santa’s Village, Kiddieland, and more.

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The Black Sox Scandal

It’s the most notorious scandal in the history of professional baseball. Eight Chicago White Sox players were charged with throwing the World Series in 1919. It was an event that ruined the reputations and careers of some of the greatest players of all time and broke the heart of a nation.

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Chicago Stories: Deadly Alliance: Leopold & Loeb poster

Deadly Alliance: Leopold and Loeb

In 1924, after several months of meticulous planning, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks for the thrill of committing a "perfect crime."

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The Rise and Fall of the Mail Order Giants

The catalogs of Sears, Roebuck, and Co., and Montgomery Ward were beloved icons of Americana. The catalogs reflected the power of companies to shape how people shopped and what they bought. The rise and fall of these mail order giants is intertwined with the history of Chicago and the rest of America.

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The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor

In 1988, Danny Sotomayor faced what amounted to a death sentence: AIDS diagnosis. No cure, costly meds, and quick fatalities. At 29, he was terrified but chose to combat the crisis in his unique way — through spectacle.

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Candy Capital

Chicago, once "Candy Capital of the World," birthed iconic sweets like Cracker Jack, M&Ms, Snickers, and Lemon Heads. 100 local companies, including Wrigley, Mars, and Ferrara, made a third of US candy, employing 25,000. Immigrant contributions shaped this confectionary legacy.

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Jane Addams: Together We Rise

Jane Addams was an activist ahead of her time. Within the walls of Hull House on the Near West Side, she led a social movement and amassed an army of women to demand change, pushing boundaries and breaking barriers along the way.

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The Boss and the Bulldozer

Richard J. Daley, aka The Boss, transformed Chicago as mayor (1955-1976). Facing white flight, he spearheaded city planning, creating the 1958 Plan for the Central City. His vision revitalized downtown but displaced 168,000 people by 1963, causing racial tensions.

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Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion

Railroad titan George Pullman’s name was once synonymous with luxury, but when his success didn’t trickle down to his workers, a rebellion ensued. A group of Black workers found success through organizing, paving the way for a Black middle class and a civil rights movement.

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Chicago Stories: Race to Reverse the River poster

The Race to Reverse the River

From its earliest days, Chicago residents and businesses alike dumped their waste directly into the Chicago River, which flowed into Lake Michigan and contaminated the city’s drinking water. Chicago Stories explores the various methods tried to combat the problem, and one engineer’s bold solution.

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Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of '58

In 1958, a tragic Catholic school fire at Our Lady of the Angels in the city’s Humboldt Park neighborhood took the lives of 92 children and 3 nuns. The fire at Our Lady of the Angels was an unimaginable tragedy that shook a parish and changed a community.

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The Birth of Gospel

This episode of Chicago Stories traces the birth and growth of gospel music in Chicago in the 1930s. The story follows "The Father of Gospel", Thomas A. Dorsey, who wrote one of gospel’s early hits while coping with his grief over the death of his wife and child. It explores the roots of gospel from southern spirituals during slavery, through gospel’s early years.

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Our Soldiers, Our Lady of Guadalupe

This is the story of pride and heartbreak in a close-knit South Side community. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Chicago’s first and oldest Mexican-American parish, lost 12 young men in the Vietnam War during a brutal five-year period.

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The Union Stockyards

At the end of the 19th century, Chicago completely transformed the way Americans eat, and the Union Stockyards on the South Side were the center of that revolution. Experience the sights, sounds, and awful smells of the Union Stockyards and the complex of meat factories next to it, known as Packingtown.

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The Real Mad Men of Chicago

You may not have heard of Albert Lasker, Eugene Kolkey, or Tom Burrell, but you most certainly know their creations. They're Chicago’s Mad Men - the local executives who created iconic figures like the Marlboro Man, Charlie the Tuna, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. This episode of Chicago Stories explores how the real Mad Men of Chicago became the leaders of the advertising world.

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Downtown Disasters

Chicago Stories recalls two very different disasters that occurred in the heart of Chicago’s Loop 90 years apart: First, the deadliest building fire in U.S. history: the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire.

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Jane Byrne

As a woman once again occupies the fifth floor of City Hall, Chicago Stories remembers the city’s first female mayor. After pulling off one of Chicago’s greatest political upsets, Jane Byrne found herself caught between the political machine that shaped her and the reformers who elected her.

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Inventing Improv

It may be Chicago’s greatest cultural export: improvised theater that was carried out into the world by the likes of Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Stephen Colbert. But this art form wasn’t created by a funny man - it was devised by a woman who wasn’t out for laughs. Explore the life and legacy of Viola Spolin, the social-worker-turned-theater guru known as The Mother of Improv.

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Ida B. Wells

There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist. WTTW brings you a new Chicago Stories special that tells her story as never before.

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The Great Chicago Fire

On October 10, 1871, Chicago awoke to an unrecognizable landscape: where 48 hours earlier there had been a vibrant city, now there was nothing but rubble stretched for miles on end. The Great Chicago Fire: A Chicago Stories Special brings to life this seismic event as never before, using vivid animations, elaborate re-creations, and interviews with historians and the descendants of eyewitnesses.

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Chicago Stories

Chicago Stories

NEW SEASON - FALL 2026

NEW SEASON - FALL 2026