Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on March 16, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 82 degrees (2012)
- Low temperature: Minus 1 degree (1900)
- Precipitation: 1.64 inches (1876)
- Snowfall: 6 inches (1960)
1993: A fire at the Paxton Hotel, a single-room-occupancy residential hotel, raged as about 200 firefighters and paramedics battled the five-alarm blaze. Fire engulfed two stairwells, trapping many of the 130 residents inside the transient hotel at 1432 N. LaSalle St. Some jumped from upper-floor windows to escape. Twenty people were killed.
Most survivors said they did not hear any smoke detectors, though firefighters reported hearing alarms. The building did not have sprinklers. After the fire, the city plunged into an inspection of every SRO.
1996: Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman was ejected and later fined and suspended for head-butting a referee during a road game in New Jersey.
2017: Northwestern University’s men’s basketball team — in its first ever NCAA tournament appearance — savored a win against Vanderbilt.
Playing in the Salt Lake City arena where Michael Jordan iced his final NBA championship, Northwestern guard Bryant McIntosh scored a game-high 25 points, nailing 10 of 16 from the field and two game-winning free throws.
2020: Patricia Frieson became what was then believed to be Illinois’ first coronavirus fatality.
Frieson, a retired nurse, had struggled with health problems for years and required a walker to get around when she left her home on the city’s South Side. As a child, she suffered from double pneumonia and continued to struggle with respiratory issues, her brother Anthony Frieson told the Tribune.
He, too, tested positive for the virus. Another sister, Wanda Bailey, 63, of Crete, died nine days later.
Two years later, the death of Debra Smith of Chicago, who died March 10, 2020, was reclassified by the Cook County medical examiner as the first probable COVID-19-related death in Illinois.
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