Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

When private sketches of Victoria and Albert at home are leaked to the public, Victoria suffers an image crisis. Things finally come to a head between Victoria and Feo, widening the rift between Victoria and Albert.

Food halls are proliferating in Chicago – why are they suddenly so popular, and how are they any different from food courts, markets, or old-school cafeterias? The answer lies in their clever adaptation to a millennial age.

Instead of buying chocolates for Valentine's Day (whether for a loved one or for yourself!), why not try making some delectable chocolate hearts studded with cranberries, with a recipe from Chicago's Bittersweet in Lakeview?

She went from being a young mother from Texas to becoming one of the first black women to appear onscreen not as a stereotype and the first to sing at the White House. Gershwin wanted her for Porgy and Bess – and later she became a liasion to Africa and a Chicago cultural patron.

Victoria decides to visit Ireland, becoming the first English monarch to do so in centuries. Albert, of course, doubts that the trip will be effective, given that calls for Irish independence are increasing – and the disagreement affects their marriage.

He has already explored the history of jazz, and now Ken Burns turns his lens towards America's other great homegrown music in an eight-part, sixteen-hour documentary series coming this fall that explores country's history and people in Burns's trademark exhaustive manner.

Baldwin Ice Cream began as a parlor opened by seven African American postal workers on the South Side and eventually grew to offering ice cream in major Midwestern grocery stores and at O'Hare, thanks in part to Jolyn Robichaux, its president for more than two decades.

How accurate are the historical events depicted in Victoria? Learn about the real people who appear in this season, from Lord Palmerston to the father of contemporary epidemiology to the "Swedish Nightingale," and discover what the revolutions in the show were about.

It has been sweeping the clouds away for decades, and now Sesame Street is turning 50. To celebrate the anniversary, the beloved children's show has some big plans, from a prime-time special to a ten-city tour that includes a stop in Chicago. 

A cholera outbreak strikes a neighborhood of London, and Victoria and Albert champion new scientific research to discover how the disease is spread. They do so separately, however, since they are not even on speaking terms as they continue to feud. 

While wealthy Victorians hosted elaborate, multi-course meals with expensive ingredients, the working class stretched the rare piece of meat as far as they could. Watch the owners of Pleasant House Pub prepare wealthy and working class Victorian meals – and yes, there is a sheep's head. 

The confines of a small island cause tensions to flare between Victoria and Albert and provide the perfect context for other noble intrigue, while Palmerston's enthusiastic welcoming of a democratic agitator to London in the queen's absence worries her.

January brings not just polar weather (which you can endure via a Nature special), but also Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday (which you can honor with an American Experience) and the returns of two very popular shows: Finding Your Roots and Victoria.

Two of the five films nominated for Academy Awards this year in the Documentary category will soon air on PBS: Hale County This Morning, This Evening and Minding the Gap. Watch a trailer and interview with a director here. 

The year Chicago was incorporated also saw the founding of the city’s first temperance group and first brewery, and the two factions grew and clashed for the following decades, leaving their mark on the city and suburbs, until temperance briefly won out with the ratification of Prohibition 100 years ago.