1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
ZIP Code
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ZIP Codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, was chosen to suggest that the travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly. The basic format consists of five numerical digits, an extended ZIP+4 code, introduced in 1983, includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, a hyphen, and four additional digits that determine a more specific location within a given ZIP Code. The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, USPS style for ZIP is all caps and the c in code is also capitalized, although style sheets for some publications use sentence case or lowercase. The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers, the United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example, Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, by the early 1960s a more organized system was needed, and on July 1,1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide. Three months later, on October 1,1963, the U. S, an earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with one exception, according to the historian of the U. S. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code, he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office gives credit to Moon only for the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or sec center, an SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes, the mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. The United States Post Office used a character, which it called Mr. ZIP. He was often depicted with a such as USE ZIP CODE in the selvage of panes of stamps or on labels contained in, or the covers of. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes, add-on codes, or add ons. But initial attempts to promote use of the new format met with public resistance. For Post Office Boxes, the rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. However, there is no rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster,9999 for general delivery, for a unique ZIP Code, the add-on code is typically 0001
3.
African Americans
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African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
4.
Asian Americans
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Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The term refers to a group that includes diverse populations who have ancestral origins in East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia. This includes people who indicate their race on the census as Asian or reported entries such as Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Other Asian. Asian Americans with no other ancestry comprise 4. 8% of the U. S. population, although migrants from Asia have been in parts of the contemporary United States since the 17th century, large-scale immigration did not begin until the mid-18th century. Nativist immigration laws during the 1880s-1920s excluded various Asian groups, eventually prohibiting almost all Asian immigration to the continental United States, after immigration laws were reformed during the 1940s-60s, abolishing national origins quotas, Asian immigration increased rapidly. Analyses of the 2010 census have shown that Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial or ethnic minority in the United States, starting in the first few years of the 2000 decade, Asian American earnings began exceeding all other racial groups for both men and women. For example, in 2008 Asian Americans had the highest median household income overall of any racial demographic, in 2012, Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the country. In 2015, Asian American men were the highest earning racial group as they earned 117% as much as white American men, once country of birth and other demographic factors are taken into account, Asian Americans are no more likely than non-Hispanic whites to live in poverty. As with other racial and ethnicity based terms, formal and common usage have changed markedly through the history of this term. Prior to the late 1960s, people of Asian ancestry were referred to as Oriental, Asiatic. Today, Asian American is the term for most formal purposes, such as government and academic research. The most commonly used definition of Asian American is the US Census Bureau definition, which all people with origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia. This is chiefly because the census definitions determine many government classifications, notably for equal opportunity programs, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, Asian person in the United States is sometimes thought of as a person of East Asian descent. In vernacular usage, Asian is often used to refer to those of East Asian descent or anyone else of Asian descent with epicanthic eyefolds. This differs from the U. S. Census definition and the Asian American Studies departments in many universities consider all those of East, before 1980, Census forms listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups, along with white and black or negro. Asian Americans had also been classified as other, in 1977, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued a directive requiring government agencies to maintain statistics on racial groups, including on Asian or Pacific Islander. The 1980 census marked the first classification of Asians as a large group, by the 1990 census, Asian or Pacific Islander was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry as a subcategory. The 2000 census onwards separated the category into two separate ones, Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, the definition of Asian American has variations that derive from the use of the word American in different contexts
5.
Hispanic and Latino Americans
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Hispanic Americans and Latino Americans, are Americans who are descendants of the peoples of Spain, Portugal, or the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America. More generally, it includes all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, other U. S. government agencies have slightly different definitions of the term, including Brazilians and other Portuguese-speaking groups. The Census Bureau uses the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably, origin can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the persons parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race, as the only specifically designated category of ethnicity in the United States, Hispanics form a pan-ethnicity incorporating a diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages. Most Hispanic Americans are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, the predominant origin of regional Hispanic populations varies widely in different locations across the country. Hispanic Americans are the second fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States after Asian Americans, hispanic/Latinos overall are the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, after non-Hispanic Whites. Hispanics have lived within what is now the United States continuously since the founding of St. Augustine by the Spanish in 1565, after Native Americans, Hispanics are the oldest ethnic group to inhabit much of what is today the United States. Spain colonized large areas of what is today the American Southwest and West Coast, the terms Hispanic and Latino refer to an ethnicity, people of this group may be of any race. Hispanic people may share some commonalities in their language, culture, history, according to the Smithsonian Institution, the term Latino includes peoples with Portuguese roots, such as Brazilians, as well as those of Spanish-language origin. In the United States, many Hispanics and Latinos are of both European and Native American ancestry, others are wholly or predominately of European ancestry, or wholly or predominantly of Amerindian ancestry. Many Hispanics and Latinos from the Caribbean, as well as regions of Latin America where African slavery was widespread. The difference between the terms Hispanic and Latino is confusing to some, the U. S. Census Bureau equates the two terms and defines them as referring to anyone from Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas. The term Latino has developed a number of definitions, one definition of Latino is a Latin male in the United States. This is the oldest and the definition used in the United States. This definition encompasses Spanish speakers from both Europe and the Americas, under this definition, immigrants from Spain and immigrants from Latin America are both Latino. This definition is consistent with the 21st-century usage by the U. S. Census Bureau and OMB, a later definition of Latino is as a condensed form of the term Latino-Americano, the Spanish word for Latin-American, or someone who comes from Latin America. Under this definition a Mexican American or Puerto Rican, for example, is both a Hispanic and a Latino, a Brazilian American is also a Latino by this definition, which includes those of Portuguese-speaking origin from Latin America. An immigrant from Spain, however, would be classified as Hispanic, while the U. S. Census Bureaus definition of Hispanic is limited to Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, other government agencies have slightly different definitions of the term
6.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
7.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
8.
Interstate 80
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Interstate 80 is a transcontinental limited-access highway in the United States that runs from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York City Metropolitan Area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the routes of the Interstate Highway System. Its final segment was opened to traffic in 1986 and it is the second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States, following I-90. I-80 is the Interstate Highway that most closely approximates the route of the historic Lincoln Highway, from near Chicago east to near Youngstown, Ohio, I-80 is a toll road, containing the majority of both the Indiana Toll Road and the Ohio Turnpike. I-80 runs concurrently with I-90 from near Portage, Indiana, to Elyria, in Pennsylvania, I-80 is known as the Keystone Shortway, a non-tolled freeway that crosses rural north-central portions of the state on the way to New Jersey and New York City. I-80 begins at an interchange with U. S. Route 101 in San Francisco and it then heads northeast through Vallejo, Sacramento, and the Sierra Nevada mountains before crossing into Nevada. A portion of the route through Pinole involved the experimental transplantation of the rare species Santa Cruz tarweed in the right-of-way, in Nevada, I-80 traverses the northern portion of the state. The Nevada portion of I-80 follows the paths of the Truckee and Humboldt rivers, the Interstate also follows the historical routes of the California Trail, First Transcontinental Railroad, and Feather River Route throughout portions of the state. I-80 in Nevada closely follows, and at points directly overlaps, the original route of the Victory Highway, State Route 1. After crossing Utahs western border in Wendover, I-80 crosses the desolate Bonneville Salt Flats west of the Great Salt Lake, the longest stretch between exits on an Interstate Highway is located between Wendover and Knolls, with 37.4 miles between those exits. This portion of I-80, crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert, is flat and straight, dotted with large warning signs about driver fatigue. It ascends Parleys Canyon and passes within a few miles of Park City as it follows a route through the mountains towards the junction with the terminus of the western section of I-84. From the junction it continues up Echo Canyon and on towards the border with Wyoming, the route of the Utah section of I-80 is defined in Utah Code Annotated § 72-4-113. In Wyoming, I-80 reaches its maximum elevation of 8,640 feet above sea level at Sherman Summit, near Buford, farther west in Wyoming, the Interstate passes through the dry Red Desert and over the Continental Divide. I-80 enters Nebraska west of Bushnell, the western portion of I-80 in Nebraska runs very close to the state of Colorado, without entering the state. The intersection of I-76 and I-80 is visible from the Colorado–Nebraska state line, from its intersection with I-76 to Grand Island, I-80 lies in the valley of the South Platte River and the Platte River. Along this length, the road does not vary from a straight line by more than a few yards. After Lincoln, I-80 turns northeast towards Omaha and it then crosses the Missouri River in Omaha to enter the state of Iowa
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Metra
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Metra is a commuter railroad in the Chicago metropolitan area. The railroad operates 241 stations on 11 different rail lines and it is the fourth busiest commuter rail system in the United States by ridership and the largest and busiest commuter rail system outside the New York City metropolitan area. There were 83.4 million passenger rides in 2014, up 1. 3% from the previous year, the estimated busiest day for Metra ridership occurred on Nov.4, 2016—the day of the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series victory rally. Using Chicagos rail infrastructure, much of which was created in the 19th century, the Illinois General Assembly established the RTA, Metras creation was a result of the anticipated failure of commuter service operated and owned by various private railroad companies in the 1970s. Freight rail companies still operate some routes, however, these operations are guided by contracted service agreements, Metra owns all rolling stock and is responsible for all stations along with the respective municipalities. Since its inception, Metra has directed more than $5 billion into the rail system of the Chicago metropolitan area. Since its founding in the 19th century, Chicago has been a major Midwestern hub in the North American rail network and it has more trackage radiating in more directions than any other city in North America. Railroads set up their headquarters in the city and Chicago became a center for building cars, passenger cars. By the 1930s Chicago had the worlds largest public transportation system, by the mid-1970s, the commuter lines faced an uncertain future. The Burlington Northern, Milwaukee Road, Chicago and North Western, to provide stability to the commuter rail system, the Illinois General Assembly formed the Regional Transportation Authority in 1974. Its purpose was to fund and plan the Chicago regions public transportation, in the beginning the Regional Transportation Authority commuter train fleet consisted of second-hand equipment, until 1976 when the first order of new EMD F40PH locomotives arrived. That F40PH fleet is still in service today, less than a decade later the Regional Transportation Authority was already suffering from ongoing financial problems. In 1983 the Illinois Legislature reorganized the agency and that reorganization left the Regional Transportation Authority in charge of day-to-day operations of all bus, heavy rail and commuter rail services throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. It was also responsible for directing fare and service levels, setting up budgets, finding sources for capital investment, due to the broad range of responsibilities entrusted with the Regional Transportation Authority, the Commuter Rail Service Board was created in 1984. It was renamed Metra in July 1985, the newly reorganized Metra service helped to bring a single identity to the many infrastructure components serviced by the Regional Transportation Authoritys commuter rail system. Metras operating arm, the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, was created as a separate subsidiary which operates seven Metra owned routes. Contracts were set up with the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads to operate four other Metra routes, while Metra owns all rolling stock and is responsible for most stations on those routes, the freight carriers use their own employees and control the right-of-way for those routes. In keeping with Metras purpose to provide an identity for commuter rail in the region
10.
Chicago Loop
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The Loop is the central business district of Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the citys 77 designated community areas, the Loop is home to Chicagos commercial core, City Hall, and the seat of Cook County. In the late century, cable car turnarounds and prominent elevated railway encircled the area. In what is now the Loop, on the bank of the Chicago River, near todays Michigan Avenue Bridge. It was the first settlement in the sponsored by the United States. Other research has concluded that the Loop was not used as a proper noun until after the 1895–97 construction of the Union elevated railway loop, Loop architecture has been dominated by skyscrapers and high-rises since early in its history. Some of the buildings in this district were instrumental in the development of towers. Chicagos street numbering system – dividing addresses into North, South, East, Chicago is still the nations rail transportation hub and passenger lines once reached seven Loop-area stations by the 1890s. Transfers from one to the other was a business for taxi drivers until the long-distance lines gave way to Amtrak in the 1970s with the majority of trains concentrated at Chicago Union Station. This area abounds in shopping opportunities, including the Loop Retail Historic District and it includes Chicagos former Marshall Fields department store location in the Marshall Field and Company Building, the original Sullivan Center Carson Pirie Scott store location. Chicagos Downtown Theatre District is also found within this area, along with numerous restaurants, Chicago has a famous skyline which features many of the tallest buildings in the world as well as the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Chicagos skyline is spaced out throughout the area, giving it a graceful beautiful appearance. Chicagos third tallest building, the Aon Center, is located just south of Illinois Center, the complex is at the east end of the Loop, east of Michigan Avenue. Two Prudential Plaza is also located here, just to the west of the Aon Center, the Loop contains a wealth of outdoor sculpture, including works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alexander Calder, and Jean Dubuffet. Chicagos waterfront, which is almost exclusively recreational beach and park areas from north to south, the area also hosts the annual music festival Lollapalooza which features popular alternative rock, heavy metal, EDM, hop hop and punk rock artists. Trips down the Chicago River, including tours, by commercial boat operators are great favorites with both locals and tourists alike. The Loop is the seat of Chicagos government and it is also the government seat of Cook County, Illinois and houses an office for the governor of the State of Illinois. The century old City Hall/County Building houses the chambers of the Mayor, City Council, across the street, the Richard J. Daley Center accommodates a famous Picasso sculpture and the state law courts
11.
O'Hare International Airport
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It is the primary airport serving the Chicago metropolitan area, with Midway International Airport, about 10 miles closer to the Loop, serving as a secondary airport. It is operated by the City of Chicago Department of Aviation, OHare was the busiest airport in the world by number of takeoffs and landings in 2014, topping Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, however, it lost the title to Atlanta a year later. Until 1998, OHare was also the worlds busiest airport in number of passengers and it was surpassed mainly due to limits the federal government imposed on the airport to reduce flight delays. As of 2016, OHare is the sixth-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, the third-busiest airport in the United States, OHare also has eight runways, more than any major international airport. OHare is a hub for American Airlines and United Airlines, as well as a hub for regional carrier Air Choice One. OHare was voted the Best Airport in North America for 10 years by two sources, Readers of the U. S. Edition of Business Traveler Magazine and Global Traveler Magazine, in contrast, Travel and Leisure magazines 2009 Americas Favorite Cities ranked Chicagos Airport System the second-worst for delays, behind the New York City airport system. OHare accounts for nearly 20% of the flight cancellations and delays. OHare was constructed in 1942–43 as part of a plant for Douglas C-54s during World War II. The site was chosen for its proximity to the city and transportation, the two-million-square-foot factory needed easy access to the workforce of the nations then-second-largest city, as well as its extensive railroad infrastructure. Orchard Place was a small farming community. Douglas Companys contract ended in 1945 and though plans were proposed to build commercial aircraft, with the departure of Douglas, the airfield took the name of Orchard Field Airport, the source of its three-letter IATA code ORD. In 1945, the city of Chicago chose Orchard Field as the site for a facility to meet future aviation demands, Matthew Laflin Rockwell was the director of planning for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and responsible for the site selection and design. He was the great-grandson of Matthew Laflin, a founder and pioneer of Chicago, in 1949, the airport was renamed OHare International Airport to honor Edward OHare, the U. S. Navys first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. (This is similar to, sourced from McCoy Air Force Base, being used for todays Orlando International Airport, by the early 1950s Midway Airport, Chicagos main airport since 1931, was the worlds busiest airport and was too crowded despite multiple expansions. Midways runways were known to be too short for the planned first generation of jets, so the city of Chicago, traveling with him, LT Whitey Feightner was redirected to land at OHare. The runway had just been completed and was covered with peach baskets to prevent aircraft from landing until it was opened, LT Feightner was told to ignore the baskets and land on the new runway, and his F7U became the first aircraft to land there. OHare opened a $1 million Skymotive terminal for corporate aircraft in 1955, the April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 10 weekday departures on United,9 on American,6 on Capital,3 Eastern,3 TWA,2 Delta,2 North Central, and 1 Braniff
12.
Midway International Airport
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Chicago Midway International Airport is a commercial airport on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, eight miles from the Loop. Formerly Chicagos main airport, traffic is dominated by low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines. Midway is the Dallas-based carriers largest focus city, as of 2013, the airport suffered a decline in traffic with the opening of OHare International Airport but later experienced significant traffic growth. Midway Airport is the second-largest passenger airport in the Chicago metropolitan area, as well as the state of Illinois, both the Stevenson Expressway and the Chicago Transit Authoritys Orange Line provide passengers access to Downtown Chicago. Originally named Chicago Air Park, Midway Airport was built on a 320-acre plot in 1923 with one cinder runway mainly for airmail flights, in 1926 the city leased the airport and named it Chicago Municipal Airport on December 12,1927. By 1928, the airport had twelve hangars and four runways, a major fire early on June 25,1930, destroyed two hangars and 27 aircraft,12 of them tri-motor passenger planes. The loss was estimated at more than two million dollars, the hangars destroyed were of the Universal Air Lines, Inc. and the Grey Goose Airlines, the latter under lease to Stout Air Lines. The fire followed an explosion of undetermined cause in the Universal hangar, in 1931 a new passenger terminal opened at 62nd St, the following year the airport claimed to be the Worlds Busiest with over 100,846 passengers on 60,947 flights. The March 1939 OAG shows 47 weekday departures,13 on United,13 American,9 TWA,4 Northwest, new Yorks airport was then the busiest airline airport in the United States, but Midway passed LaGuardia in 1948 and kept the title until 1960. The record-breaking 1945 Japan–Washington flight of B-29s refueled at the airport on their way to Washington DC, in July 1949 the airport was renamed after the Battle of Midway. That year Midway saw 3.2 million passengers, passengers peaked at 10 million in 1959, the diagram on the January 1951 C&GS approach chart shows four parallel pairs of runways, all 4240 ft or less except for 5730-ft runway 13R and 5230-ft runway 4R. Air France, Lufthansa, and REAL had a few flights per week. Midway was running out of room and in any case could not handle the 707 and DC-8 jets that appeared in 1959, every Chicago jet flight had to use OHare, which had opened to the airlines in 1955. Electras and Viscounts could have continued to fly out of Midway, from July 1962 until United returned in July 1964, Midways only scheduled airline was Chicago Helicopter. In August 1966 a total of four fixed-wing arrivals were scheduled, by 1967 reconstruction began at the airport, adding three new concourses with 28 gates and three ticket counters, and in 1968 the city invested $10 million in renovation funds. In May 1968 there were 22 scheduled departures, six United 727s to MSP, DCA and LGA,12 Northwest 727s to MSP and CLE, one Delta DC-9 to STL and three Ozark FH227s. Midway Airlines arrived on October 31,1979 with DC-9 nonstops to Kansas City, Detroit and Cleveland Lakefront and their September 1989 timetable shows 117 weekday departures to 29 cities, plus 108 departures on their commuter affiliates to 22 more cities. In 1982, the city of Chicago purchased Midway Airport from the Chicago Board of Education for $16 million, three years later, Southwest Airlines began operations at Midway
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