1926: Aviatrix Bessie Coleman died while practicing for a performance in Jacksonville, Florida. Her Jenny aircraft turned over, dropping Coleman out of the aircraft at about 2,000 feet. She plummeted to the ground and died.
Funerals were held for Coleman in Jacksonville, Orlando and Chicago, where 2,000 people crowded Pilgrim Baptist Church on May 7, 1926. Coleman was buried in Lincoln Cemetery, and for several years, pilots dropped floral tributes to her from the sky.
Bessie Coleman Drive at O’Hare International Airport is named in her honor and a postage stamp featuring her image was released in 1995.
1975: Tribune correspondents Ronald Yates — who was one of the last American journalists to leave Phnom Penh when the Cambodian capital fell to insurgents just weeks earlier — and Philip Caputo lost contact with the newspaper in South Vietnam just before Saigon was overtaken by communist North Vietnam.
“April 29, 1975, is a day I will never forget, not only because I wasn’t sure if I would get out of Vietnam in one piece but because I still consider it one of the greatest betrayals in American history – the disastrous and shameful exodus from Afghanistan in 2021 notwithstanding,” Yates recalled in his blog about the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
Yates and Caputo had been evacuated via helicopter, then delivered to the vessel off the South Vietnamese coast and taken to the Philippines. Yates’ first story post-evacuation was about the “confusion and uncertainty” in the American embassy’s last days in Saigon.
A.D. Moyer, Chicago district director for Immigration Services, points out locations where immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission can get help applying for legalization at a news conference at the Federal Building on April 30, 1987. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune)
1987: Less than 1 ½ years after overseeing raids on taxi drivers in the U.S. illegally, Chicago district director for immigration services A.D. Moyer detailed plans to open four centers to help immigrants with paperwork to become legal U.S. residents.
The effort was part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, a law passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan to offer a path to legal residence for people in the U.S. illegally since Jan. 1, 1982.
Barb Scheff, left, of Bolingbrook, is hugged by Marie Petges, of Plainfield, at a vigil for Lisa Stebic on the two-year anniversary of Stebic’s disappearance, April 30, 2009. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune)
2007: Lisa Stebic, mother of two, was last seen by her husband Craig Stebic.
That same day, her divorce attorney sent her papers to have her husband evicted from the home they shared in Plainfield, though Craig Stebic said he knew nothing about that. The next day, she was reported missing by Craig Stebic.
There were massive searches, billboards, hotlines, rewards, and television appearances. Then former WMAQ-Ch. 5 reporter Amy Jacobson accepted an invitation to speak with Craig Stebic and swim with him and his kids at the Stebics’ backyard pool.
Lisa Stebic has not been found. Though no one has ever been officially declared a suspect, investigators said then that they consider Craig Stebic the sole person of interest in the case. He has not been charged.
Former President Barack Obama visits the site of the Obama Presidential Center to sign a metal beam as the concrete infrastructure of the building reaches its full height on June 10, 2024, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
2015: President Barack Obama selected Chicago as the site of his library and museum.
The presidential center is under construction in Jackson Park and slated to open in 2026.
West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White, left, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after White was selected seventh by the Chicago Bears at the 2015 NFL Draft at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on April 30, 2015. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Also in 2015: Chicago hosted the NFL draft for the first time since December 1963. With the No. 7 pick in the first round, the Chicago Bears selected West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White.
Horses and jockeys make their way to the track on opening day at Arlington International Racecourse, April 30, 2021. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
2021: Arlington Park opened for its last season. The horse track closed its gates on Sept. 25, 2021.
The Chicago Bears finalized a deal to buy the site in February 2023.
A line stretches down the block a half an hour before Dinkel’s Bakery & Cafe opened its doors for the last time on April 30, 2022. (Vincent D. Johnson/for the Chicago Tribune)
2022: Dinkel’s Bakery, open since 1922 and owned by three generations of the Dinkel family, who made countless cakes to celebrate and grieve over the decades, closed at 3329 N. Lincoln Ave.
