To celebrate the NATO summits, WBEZ history blogger John Schmidt highlights some of Chicago’s global history. Answers are below.

CHICAGO GLOBAL HISTORY QUIZ

1. Who was the Norwegian-born resident of Logan Square who helped popularize football?

(A) George Halas
(B) Red Grange
(C) Garrison Keillor, Sr.
(D) Knute Rockne

2. Why is Italian-born Frances Xavier Cabrini famous?

(A) She was the first American citizen to become a Catholic saint.
(B) She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
(C) She was the first Italian elected to the U.S. Congress.
(D) She was the first American woman to become a millionaire through her own work.

3. What destroyed German-born John Peter Altgeld’s political career?

(A) He was found to have entered the U.S. illegally.
(B) His pardons of the Haymarket defendants were unpopular.
(C) He was a victim of anti-German prejudice during World War I.
(D) As governor, he appointed himself to a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

4. Who was the first foreign-born Mayor of Chicago?

(A) Anton Cermak
(B) Joseph Medill
(C) Rahm Emanuel
(D) Joseph Rostenkowski

5. John Belushi’s family came from what NATO country?

(A) Albania
(B) Poland
(C) Slovakia
(D) Japan  

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Answers: d, a, b, b, a

(D). Knute Rockne.
He was born in Norway in 1888 and was brought to Chicago when he was a child. Rockne played football at the University of Notre Dame, and during the 1920s became famous as the school’s football coach. His teams became popular among immigrants in big cities who never went to college—Rockne called those fans his “subway alumni.”   

(A) She was the first American citizen to become a Catholic saint.
Cabrini was noted for her work among fellow Italian immigrants. In Chicago she founded Columbus Hospital, and also helped organize the first parochial school in an Italian parish. She earned American citizenship in 1909, died in 1917, and was proclaimed a saint in 1946.

(B) His pardons of the Haymarket defendants were unpopular.  
Altgeld was elected Governor of Illinois in 1892. A former judge, he took a keen interest in the trial of the radical labor leaders who’d been convicted of murder in the Haymarket Incident. Altgeld re-examined the case, concluded that the trial had been unfair, and pardoned the three defendants who were still alive. He knew the pardons would cost him re-election, but he did it anyway.

(B) Joseph Medill. Many people will pick Anton Cermak as Chicago’s first foreign-born mayor, since his birthplace was Bohemia. Joseph Medill is best known as the long-time publisher of the Chicago Tribune. But he also served a two-year term as mayor, and was Canadian by birth—he was born in St. John, New Brunswick.

(A) Albania. Belushi’s father was born in Albania, his mother was of Albanian ancestry. John Belushi himself was born in Chicago and grew up in Wheaton.