Chicago

Chicago is a large city in the state of Illinois, in the Midwestern United States. It sits on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes. With about 2.7 million people, Chicago is the third-biggest city in the country, after New York City and Los Angeles. People often call it the Windy City.

The name Chicago comes from a word in the Miami-Illinois language. The word was "shikaakwa," which meant a kind of wild onion that grew along the river. Native American tribes, including the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa, lived in the area for hundreds of years before European settlers arrived. The first non-Native resident was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who built a home near the river in the 1780s.

Chicago grew very fast in the 1800s. Its location made it a giant hub for trade. Trains, ships, and later highways all met there. Cattle and grain from farms out west were sent to Chicago, then shipped to cities in the east. By 1890, Chicago was the second-largest city in the United States.

In 1871, a huge fire swept through the city. The Great Chicago Fire burned for two days. It destroyed about 17,000 buildings and left nearly 100,000 people without homes. Legend blamed a cow that kicked over a lantern, but historians are not sure how the fire really started. What is sure is what came next. Chicago rebuilt quickly, and architects used the chance to try bold new ideas. In 1885, the city built the world's first skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building. Chicago has been famous for tall buildings ever since. The Willis Tower, finished in 1973, was the tallest building on Earth for almost 25 years.

Chicago is also famous for its food and music. Deep-dish pizza was invented there in 1943. The city gave birth to Chicago-style blues in the 1940s and helped shape jazz, gospel, and house music. The Art Institute of Chicago holds one of the best art collections in the country.

The Chicago River runs right through downtown. Engineers actually reversed its flow in 1900. The river used to empty into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's drinking water. So workers dug canals to make the river flow the other way, toward the Mississippi River system. It remains one of the biggest engineering projects in American history.