Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 3 million people, it is the third largest city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. Located on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan, Chicago is the third-most densely populated major city in the U.S., and anchor to the world's 26th largest metropolitan area with over 9.5 million people across three states.

After a series of wars with the local Native Americans, Chicago was founded in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. The city became a major transportation and telecommunications hub in North America. It was rebuilt after being largely destroyed by a fire on October 8-9, 1871, during which irreplaceable artifacts relating to Abraham Lincoln, whose family had settled in the city, were incinerated. Today, the city retains its status as a major hub, both for industry and infrastructure.

Chicago in "The Girl Who Took Lessons"

Karen Vaughan traveled to Chicago on business, a trip she kept extending. Upon her return home, her husband learned that she had had an affair while in Chicago.

Chicago in The Hot War

Chicago, Illinois was the second largest city in the United States after New York. After the atomic bombing of the latter, Chicago became the largest American city to come out of World War III unscathed.

President Harry Truman spoke at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Chicago in September 1952. Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson also attended. Truman's speech essentially conceded that the Republican Party would win the Congressional elections in November, and the presidency the following year.

Chicago in In the Presence of Mine Enemies

Chicago was not destroyed by the Japanese and Germans during the Third World War, as was the fate of certain major American cities, but it did remain occupied by the troops of the Wehrmacht and was subject to bombings both during and after the war.

Chicago in Joe Steele

Chicago Stadium, Chicago was the site of the Republican National Convention in June 1932 and the Democratic National Convention in July. The Democratic convention proved the more dramatic and important of the two. After two days of voting at the Democratic convention, results were evenly split between two front runners: Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York and Congressman Joe Steele of California. Roosevelt was killed in a fire in the Executive Mansion in Albany under suspicious circumstances, and Steele received the Democratic Party's nomination by default, winning the general election in November.

In 1940, the Democrats once again held their convention in Chicago and nominated President Steele to run for an unprecedented third term. The nomination process was uncontested this time.

Chicago welcomed both of the major party conventions in 1952. After a brutal and public floor fight, the Republicans nominated Robert Taft. Three weeks later, the Democrats renominated Steele for the last time.

Chicago in Southern Victory

The Florence Hotel in Chicago. It was here that the Republican Party fell apart in 1882.

Chicago was the site of the 1882 Republican Party caucus called by former President Abraham Lincoln that saw the party split apart. Most of the liberal faction followed Lincoln to the Socialist Party while most of the conservative faction followed Benjamin Butler to the Democratic Party, pushing that party further right. Although the Republican Party survived the split as a centrist party, it would never again be a dominant party in the United States.

Chicago was also the site of the Socialist National Convention in 1924.

Confederate bombers attacked Chicago during the Second Great War, particularly the city's railroad yards. In 1944, Confederate President Jake Featherston idly threatened to destroy several U.S. cities, including Chicago, with a superbomb; at that point, the C.S. had used its only bomb in Philadelphia, and certainly had no means of attacking Chicago or any other city.

Chicago in Supervolcano

Chicago was the site of a geologists' convention a decade after the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupted. Kelly Ferguson attended, and found a city that was in many ways reverted to the 19th century. Power had broken down, and couldn't be restarted with any reliability.

Chicago in The Two Georges

Given its central location in the North American Union, Astoria, Illinois was a major transportation hub for both the railroads and airship lines. Its O'Hare Airship Port was the busiest in the land and notorious for delays.

In 1995 Colonel Thomas Bushell and Captain Samuel Stanley arrived in Astoria onboard the Prairie Schooner. As they approached O'Hare, the captain announced on the loudspeakers that all mooring masts were occupied and that several airships were already queued up ahead of them waiting for available masts. The Prairie Schooner joined the queue and finally docked an hour and twenty minutes late. To rub salt in the wounds, the airship that cleared the mast for them was the Six Nations Special.

The airship company representatives were apologetic and did what they could to make alternative arrangements. Their tickets were exchanged for rail tickets on the Twentieth Century Limited for Doshoweh and the two got to the rail station in good time. Nevertheless, leaving at 12:15 on the train rather than 7:00 on the airship aggravated Bushell.

Literary comment

In OTL, there is a town of Astoria, Illinois, in the west-central part of the state, nowhere near Chicago.

Chicago in "Two Thieves"

Chicago became the model for Shytown, one of countless nation-states created on the banks of the large river on an alien planet, where billions of people from Earth's past were mysteriously resurrected. Richard J. Daley resumed the rank of Mayor.

Chicago in Worldwar

Chicago proved to be one of the most strategic cities for the United States during the Race Invasion of Tosev 3. American physicists had been in the early stages of the project to build an atomic bomb at the University of Chicago when the Race invaded Earth. In an attempt to disrupt the Tosevites' radio transmissions, Fleetlord Atvar ordered the detonation of several atomic bombs high in the atmosphere. One of these was detonated over Chicago.

The Race came close to overrunning Chicago in the first year of their invasion of the United States, prompting the team working on the atomic bomb to flee. However, in the winter of 1942 American forces lead by Generals George Patton and Omar Bradley took advantage of a snowstorm to cut off and destroy the lead elements of the Race army marching on the city. The front was pushed back halfway across the state of Illinois as a result. Chicago eventually became the primary front of the Race's invasion of the United States when the Race once again tried to overrun it. They gradually pushed the Americans back, but their progress was so slow and costly due to intense house to house combat, especially once they entered the city. When Atvar promised Secretary of State Cordell Hull that his infantrymales would reach Lake Michigan, Hull retorted "Some will, but how many won't?"

When the USA's first atomic bomb (nicknamed "The Fat Lady") was completed in Denver, it was shipped by train to Chicago. American soldiers buried the bomb under their position and withdrew from the city. When the Race took possession of the field, the US detonated the bomb by a radio transmitter, destroying most of the city and a substantial number of Race males and their equipment. This event and the battle preceding it were later dramatized in an almost accurate movie called The Battle of Chicago (1964).