Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area from Oct. 12-19, according to the Tribune’s archives.

Are we missing an important event? Email me.

— Kori Rumore

Oct. 12, 1907: The Chicago Cubs won their first World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers in Game 5, which was played in Michigan. The Cubs repeated in 1908.

Oct. 13, 1992: Shortly after the 9 a.m. school bell, 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot in the head by a sniper while walking with his mother from his Cabrini-Green high-rise to the Jenner Academy of the Arts. Half an hour later, he was pronounced dead at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Later that day, police arrested reputed street gang leader Anthony Garrett in connection with Dantrell’s murder.

Wayne Messmer sings the national anthem before a Chicago Blackhawks-St. Louis Blues match on April 8, 1994 at Chicago Stadium. Hours later, he became a gunshot victim. (Charles Cherney/Chicago Tribune)

Oct. 14, 1994: After national anthem singer Wayne Messmer was shot in the neck on April 9, 1994 in Chicago, doctors were worried if he would recover his voice. He was joined by his wife Kathleen to once again sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the debut of the Chicago Wolves hockey team. Messmer, the team's executive vice president said, "No one can imagine how I felt."

Oct. 15, 1917: The Chicago White Sox won the World Series in Game 6 when the New York Giants left home plate uncovered and Eddie Collins dashed home with third baseman Heinie Zimmerman chasing him. It was the team's second championship. It's third arrived 88 years later.

Tribune critic Dave Kehr said the 1992 inner-city horror movie “Candyman,” which was based in the city’s Cabrini-Green public housing development, captured “a rare, untouristy sense of the city.” (Chicago Tribune)

Oct. 16, 1992: “Candyman,” a horror film about a white graduate student (Virginia Madsen) researching the urban legend of a hooked-handed apparition (Tony Todd) who appears when his name is uttered five times, was released. The movie was set in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex.

Tribune critic Dave Kehr gave the film, which was revived in 2021 by director Nia DaCosta, three stars.

Martin Cooper, who led the team that built the first mobile cellphone, holds a prototype of that phone at his home on April 4, 2025, in San Diego. (Gregory Bull/AP)

Oct. 17, 1973: Motorola innovator and "father of the cellphone" Martin Cooper and seven others filed for a patent for their "Radio Telephone System," which included both a phone and a tower network to connect it. The result was U.S. Patent No. 3,906,166.

Though it was another decade before Motorola sold the DynaTAC 8000X to the public for more than $12,000 in today’s money, Cooper’s call was the start of a technological revolution.

Oct. 18, 1892: Did the first long-distance telephone call from Chicago to New York actually happen if the guy at the other end of the line couldn't hear a thing?

Chicago Mayor Hempstead Washburne heard what New York Mayor Hugh J. Grant, but Grant couldn't hear Washburne. A cornet solo, hpwever, could be distinctly heard.

"It was explained that forty receivers had been put into the circuit and these were all being used by the crowd in the room, " the Tribune reported. "This, it was said, diminished the volume of sound."

Oct. 19, 1983: University of Chicago astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with William Alfred Fowler).

Fifty years prior, Chandrasekhar’s colleagues discounted his theory of the existence of white dwarfs, dying stars that collapse into bodies of extreme density and low light. The University of Chicago astrophysicist, who was a native of India but became a U.S. citizen in 1953, discovered white dwarfs while on a steamer ship en route from his home country to England in 1930. Astronomers, however, have since proven that white dwarfs are among the most common stars in the cosmos.

At the time of the award announcement, Chandrasekhar was more proud of his work on black holes, which are the remains of collapsed stars far larger than white dwarfs. Others praised his dedication to students. Chandrasekhar became the second person in his family to be named a Nobel laureate. His uncle, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, discovered a form of light-scattering known as the Raman effort, for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1930.

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