A couple of interesting Chicago tidbits this week:
- The Explosive Life and Death of the World’s First Ferris Wheel: Gawker explores the history of the world’s first ferris wheel, built in Chicago for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition.
- The Unsuccessful Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln: Smithsonian Magazine explores a previous, unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, including the involvement of a woman named Kate Warne, “a young widow, [who] had stunned Pinkerton when she appeared at his Chicago headquarters, asking to be hired as a detective.” Kate is regarded America’s first female detective. She died and was buried in Chicago.