Chicago

Stephanie Hart, a semifinalist for the national James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker, conjures up childhood memories with her luscious cakes at Brown Sugar Bakery – and she's trying to use her success as a prominent African American bakery to revitalize neighborhoods.

As Chicago prepares to elect its first female African American mayor, take a look back at Jane Byrne, the first woman to break the mayoral glass ceiling, standing up to the powerful Democratic machine in the process and winning in Chicago's biggest political upset.

“[Leon] Despres has been told to shut up – in one form or another – more than any grown man in Chicago," Mike Royko once wrote. "Throughout his career, he has been in the forefront of just about every decent, worthwhile effort to improve life in this city."

While serving as a porter on a Pullman Palace car was one of the better jobs available to African American men, it still had its indignities. Frustrated that they did not share in the gains of their white colleagues, the porters formed the first successful black union in the country. 

The "King of Soul" grew up in Bronzeville and cut his teeth performing in churches and on streets in the city, striving to be the next Nat "King" Cole, who had attended the same high school as Cooke. 

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.

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.

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.

Chicago is a great food city, and, over the years, we've produced a bounty of cookbooks. Local chefs, restaurants, organizations – even baseball teams and politicians – have gotten in on the action. Behold, the cream of the Chicago-made cookbook crop. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was first published 250 years ago, became a proud emblem of the American middle class during the 20th century in large part thanks to the efforts of Chicago institutions and people. 

60 years ago, 92 children and three nuns died in a fire at the Our Lady of the Angels school on Chicago's West Side. The tragedy could easily have been prevented, and had a wide-reaching effect on fire safety measures across the country.

Starting the day after Thanksgiving, the CTA Holiday Train will begin bringing joy to "L" riders, and the Holiday Bus starts service the next week. Find their schedules here so that you can get a chance to enjoy the lights and take a photo with Santa!

The holiday season is upon us, as going into any store and hearing the music will inform you. If you want to make sure that the most wonderful time of the year is truly full of wonder, Chicagoland offers plenty of magical opportunities, from tree lightings to markets to parades.

After their removal from the region around Chicago in the early nineteenth century, Native Americans began returning to the city in the 1950s under the federal government's ill-planned relocation policy. Chicago has the oldest urban Indian center, and the third largest urban population of Native Americans.

In celebration of the opening of Chicago's first subway transit line 75 years ago, the CTA is sending out two vintage train cars that ran from 1923 to 1973 and are the same model of car that was among the first to run on the State Street subway line.