The flag of Illinois
Illinois ( IL -ih-NOY ) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population , and the 25th-most land area . Its capital city is Springfield in the center of the state, and the state's largest city is Chicago in the northeast.
Present-day Illinois was inhabited by Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in the 17th century Illinois Country , as part of their sprawling colony of New France . A century later, the revolutionary war Illinois campaign prefigured American involvement in the region. Following U.S. independence in 1783 , which made the Mississippi River the national boundary, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River. Illinois was soon part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory , and in 1818, it achieved statehood . The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes , and the invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany , Sweden and elsewhere.
In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation, especially in Chicago, which became the world's fastest growing city by the late 19th century. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe . Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large black community, particularly in Chicago, which became a leading cultural, economic, and population center; the Chicago metropolitan area holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.
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Exterior of the observatory in 2013
The University of Illinois Astronomical Observatory , located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , was built in 1896 and was designed by Charles A. Gunn . It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since November 6, 1986, and on December 20, 1989, was designated a National Historic Landmark .
The observatory played a key role in the development of astronomy as it was home to a key innovation in the area of astronomical photometry . The facility has been directed by such noted scientists as Joel Stebbins and Robert Horace Baker . Erected at the behest of the Illinois General Assembly, the University of Illinois Observatory became important in the development of astronomy due, in large part, to pioneering research by Dr. Stebbins, from 1907 to 1922. Joel Stebbins left the University of Illinois in 1922 but left behind a legacy of discovery that helped alter the face of modern astronomy. The building served the University of Illinois astronomy department from its opening until 1979, when the department moved into a new, larger building to house its growing staff. Though none of the astronomical instruments are being used for professional research today, the observatory still contains a 12" Brashear refractor that is used as a teaching tool in the university's astronomy classes.
(Read more... )
General Wesley Clark
Wesley Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired four-star general of the United States Army . Clark was valedictorian of his class at West Point , was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in PPE , and later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science . He spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense , receiving many military decorations , several honorary knighthoods , and a Presidential Medal of Freedom .
Clark joined the 2004 race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination as a drafted candidate on September 17, 2003, but withdrew from the primary race on February 11, 2004 in favor of campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry . Clark currently leads a political action committee — "WesPAC: Securing America" — which was formed after the primaries, and used it to support numerous Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections . (Read more... )
Image 2 Lithograph advertisement for the
CH&D Railway showing the interior of a
Pullman dining car , 1894, with a
Pullman porter serving two men at a table.
Image credit: Strobridge & Co. (lithographers), Library of Congress (digital file), Mu (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 3 The
Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the world's tallest building from 1973 to 2004. The tower's innovative
bundled tube structure was designed by
Bruce Graham and
Fazlur Khan .
Photo credit: Soakologist (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 4 A poster for the
Century of Progress World's Fair showing exhibition buildings with boats in the foreground..
Image credit: Weimer Pursell (artist); Neely Printing Co., Chicago (silkscreen print); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 6 Chris Young winding up for a
four-seam fastball in the
bullpen while warming up before a 2007 game. Behind Young can be seen the
Wrigley Field scoreboard and bleachers.
Image credit: TonyTheTiger (photographer) and Jjron (editing) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 7 This 1941 photograph shows the maze of livestock pens and walkways at the
Union Stock Yards , Chicago.
Image credit: John Vachon , Farm Security Administration (photographer), Darwinek (digital retouching) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 8 The dome of the
Illinois State Capitol . Designed by architects
Cochrane and Garnsey , the dome's interior features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze and illustrating scenes from Illinois history. Stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the
State Seal , appear in the oculus. Ground was first broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1869, and it was completed twenty years later.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 9 A illustration of the Upper Bluff Lake Dancing Figures
repoussé copper plate , an artifact of the
Mississippian culture found at the Saddle Site in
Union County, Illinois .
Image credit: H. Rowe (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 10 A mill belonging to the grain company Bunge Lauhoff in downtown
Danville . The facility was built in 1947.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 11 A street view of the
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in
Oak Park . Wright built the house in 1889 and added the Studio and Connecting Corridor in 1898. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has restored the property to its appearance in 1909, the last year the architect lived there with his family.
Photo credit: User:Banewson (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 12 A
great blue heron (Ardea herodias) flying with nesting material in Illinois. There is a colony of about twenty heron nests in trees nearby.
Image credit: PhotoBobil (photographer), Snowmanradio (upload), PetarM (digital retouching) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 13 American Gothic , a 1930 painting by
Grant Wood , has been in the collection of the
Art Institute of Chicago since shortly after its creation. The painting is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in popular culture.
Image credit: Grant Wood (painter), Google Art Project (digital file), DcoetzeeBot (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 14 A view of Lake Falls in
Matthiessen State Park in
La Salle County near
Oglesby . The park's stream begins with the Lake Falls and flows into the
Vermillion River .
Photo credit: Cspayer (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 17 Photograph of suffragette, social worker, philosopher, and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Jane Addams in 1924 or 1926.
Image credit: Bain News Service (photograph), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 18 The
LaSalle Rail Bridge and
Abraham Lincoln Memorial Bridge over the
Illinois River . The LaSalle Bridge was built by the
Illinois Central Railroad in 1893, and the Lincoln Bridge was built in 1987 with the construction of
Interstate 39 .
Image credit: Joseph Norton and Ronald Frazier (photographers), Alanscottwalker (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 20 Symbols of many religions are carved in concrete relief on the exterior of the
Bahá'í House of Worship in
Wilmette . The temple was designed by the architect
Louis Bourgeois and constructed between 1921 and 1953.
Image credit: ctot_not_def (photographer), Tobias Vetter (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 21 Photograph of
Shoeless Joe Jackson ,
Black Betsy in hand, in 1913 with the
Cleveland Naps , prior to his seasons with the
Chicago White Sox .
Image credit: Charles M. Conlon (photographer), Mears Auctions (digital file), Scewing (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 22 "The Great Presidential Puzzle": This
chromolithograph cartoon about the
1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago shows
Roscoe Conkling , leader of the
Stalwarts of the Republican Party, playing a puzzle game. All blocks in the puzzle are the heads of the potential Republican presidential candidates. The cartoon parodies the famous
15 puzzle .
Image credit: Mayer, Merkel, & Ottmann (lithographers); James Albert Wales (artist); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 23 Hohenbuehelia mastrucata mushroom growing in
Busse Woods ,
Elk Grove Village .
Image credit: Rocky Houghtby (photographer), Leoboudv (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 24 The
Cairo Mississippi River Bridge near the confluence of the
Mississippi and
Ohio Rivers at
Cairo , the lowest elevation in the state. The bridge was built in 1929 by the
American Bridge Company and the
Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co. Image credit: Nick Jordan (photographer), Fredddie (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 25 The
McFarland Carillon is a 185-foot bell tower with 49 bells at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign . The tower was built in 2008-09 and was designed by Fred Guyton of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets.
Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 26 The "Chunkey Player" is an 8.5 inch (22 cm) high by 5.5 inch (14 cm) wide
Missouri flint clay statuette depicting a player of the ancient Native American game of
chunkey . Believed to have been originally crafted at or near the
Cahokia site in Illinois, it was found in
Muskogee County, Oklahoma .
Photo credit: User:TimVickers (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 27 The
Garden of the Gods in
Shawnee National Forest . The
unglaciated gray
sandstone of the wilderness area is more rugged than most of Illinois.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 29 The
coat of arms of Illinois as illustrated in the 1876 book
State Arms of the Union by
Louis Prang .
Image credit: Henry Mitchell (illustrator), Louis Prang & Co. (lithographer and publisher), Godot13 (restoration) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 30 "Let Go–But Stand By:" Photograph of
Frances Willard from her 1895 book,
A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle. The new
safety bicycle became
associated with women's emancipation .
Image credit: Frances E. Willard (book author), Woman's Temperance Publishing Association and Fleming H. Revell Co. (publishers), HathiTrust (digitization), Dennis Bratland (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 31 A
pyrite disc, also called a "miner's dollar," from a coal mine in
Sparta .
Image credit: Cccefalon (photographer and digital retouching) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 33 Magnolia Manor in
Cairo , built by businessman Charles A. Galigher in 1869.
Photo credit: MuZemike (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 34 The water tower and barracks complex at
Fort Sheridan in 1898. The principal buildings of the fort were built between 1889 and 1910 by the firm
Holabird & Roche .
Image credit: Detroit Photographic Co. ; Bathgems (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 36 The
Old State Capitol in
Springfield . Designed by
John F. Rague in a
Greek Revival style and completed in 1840, the building housed the
Illinois General Assembly until 1876.
Photo credit: Agriculture (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 39 The
Campana Factory in
Batavia . It was built in 1936 to serve as a factory for
The Campana Company , which produced Italian Balm, the most popular hand lotion in the United States during the
Great Depression . The
Streamline Moderne and
Bauhaus design by Frank D. Chase features many innovative technologies, such as air conditioning.
Photo credit: User:MrPanyGoff (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 40 Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844. This unusual black-and-white
lithograph has a second yellow-brown layer on top of it.
Image credit: G.W. Fasel (painter); Charles G. Crehen (lithographer); Nagel & Weingaertner, N.Y. (publishers); Library of Congress (digital file); Adam Cuerden (upload) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 41 Plants of the
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in
Will County .
Tallgrass prairie once covered around two-thirds of Illinois. Midewin is the only federal tallgrass prairie preserve east of the
Mississippi River .
Photo credit: User:Alanscottwalker (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 43 The
Mendota Hills Wind Farm in
Lee County . Built in 2003 by Navitas Energy, Mendota Hills was the first utility scale wind farm in Illinois.
Photo credit: Dori (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 44 Lincoln Home National Historic Site in
Springfield . The house was built for the Rev. Charles Dresser in 1839.
Abraham and
Mary Todd Lincoln purchased it in 1844, later adding a second story.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 45 A mural by Chicago artist
Louis Grell in the
Springfield Amtrak station . The mural depicts a quote by Abraham Lincoln, a map of the post-1947
Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad , and the seals of the seven states that the railroad served.
Image credit: Louis Grell (painter), RI-Bill (photographer) (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 46 The Twenty Acre Dairy Barn, first of the experimental
University of Illinois round barns . The barn was designed by James M. White and Kell & Bernard for the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1908
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 47 A
Canada goose (Branta canadensis) swimming in
Palatine .
Photo credit: Joe Ravi (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 48 Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in downtown
Chicago . The complex, designed by
Bertrand Goldberg and completed in 1964, consists of two corncob-shaped 179 m, 65-story towers.
Photo credit: Diego Delso (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 49 An illustration of
Kincaid Mounds , a city of the
Mississippian culture , at its height. The city was located near the Ohio River on the boundary of present day
Massac and
Pope Counties.
Image credit: H. Rowe (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
Image 50 The
Chicago Theatre . Designed by the firm
Rapp and Rapp , it was the flagship theater for
Balaban and Katz group.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from
Portal:Illinois/Selected picture )
21 June 2026 – Tornadoes of 2026
Three people are killed, five others are injured and multiple people are trapped after three tornadoes touch down near Wichita , Kansas ; Dix , Illinois ; and Newburgh , Indiana , United States. (KSDK) (KSN) (WSIL-TV)
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