1. About 40 million people visit Chicago every year. That’s about 12 percent of the national population.
2. Pabst Blue Ribbon, dear hipster friends, was introduced at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Ugh, how mainstream.
3. Another Chicago World’s Fair debut: Cracker Jacks. The original surprise inside has been lost to time immemorial.
4. The rivalry between Chicago and Cincinnati, OH was based mainly around which city could legitimately call themselves “Porkopolis.”
5. The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago hosted the world’s first Ferris wheel.
6. Frank Duryea, the first winner of a car race, won it in Chicago. He was a real speed demon too. His car went 7 mph.
7. The Great Chicago Fire didn’t start with a cow kicking over a lantern, but just a little burning hay that got out of control.
8. Only four buildings survived that fire, and the water tower (for which Water Tower Place is known) is the most famous of them.
9. Chicago’s rival territories, the North and South side, are split by Madison Street.
10. The Field Museum houses the most complete fossil of a Tyrannosaurus-Rex ever known. Her name is Sue.
11. The Chicago Cubs World Series curse was started by a local restaurant owner who was denied entry because of his date—who was a billy goat.
12. After 25 grueling innings, the Chicago White Sox cleaned up the Brewers in 1984, closing the longest baseball game in recorded history.
13. Softball was invented in Chi-Town, too.
14. Wrigley Field, has hosted more professional football games than any other pro field in the country. That’s right, football games.
15. Chicago has produced the best and worst talk show hosts of all time—Oprah and Jerry Springer. You can decide which is which.
16. The site of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (Al Capone’s version of the Red Wedding) is now the front yard of a retirement home.
17. The Chicago Pile-1 is the only successfully critical nuclear reactor ever built on a squash court, beneath some bleachers at University of Illinois.
18. Route 66 (of “Get your kicks” fame) ends right outside of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Flickr user Rob Young
19. Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin are all visible from the top of Willis Tower.
20. In 1896 Whitcomb L. Judson invented the “hookless fastener,” and it was presumably called that until 1923 when some ad copy went viral and the word “zipper” was born.
21. The Hostess Twinkie was processed—not grown, not baked, not cooked—in the River Forest suburb of Chicago.
22. Deep dish pizza was invented at Uno Pizzeria as spiritual successors to the casseroles that were popular during the Great Depression.
23. The Chicago River actually flows out of Lake Michigan, and it’s the only river in the entire world with this unusual pattern.
24. However, In 1900 the fine people of Chicago actually reversed that flow, so the river now flows into the Mississippi River.
Flickr user JFXie
25. There’s only one other place in the world with a higher Polish population than Chicago. And it’s Warsaw, Poland.
26. The Chicago Tribune coined the “jazz” as a musical term in 1912.
27. The very first presidential debate to be televised (JFK vs. Nixon) was shot in Chicago’s CBS studio.
28. In the trial following Chicago's infamous Haymarket Riot in 1886, there was actually no solid evidence linking the defendants to the bombing. But they were found guilty anyway.
29. The Haymarket Riot bomb that set off the violence was steel-plated dynamite. Who invited Wile E. Coyote?
30. Hillary Rodham Clinton, our very first female Secretary of State, was born in Chicago.
31. And, for that matter, so was animation luminary Walt Disney.
32. Not to mention Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Harrison Ford has been a native Cubs fan for life.
33. Chicago-based company R S Owens & Co. are responsible for one of the most recognizable figures in pop culture—the Academy Award statue.
34. Chicago’s flag has four stars for the two World’s Fairs, Fort Dearborn and the Great Fire; two blue lines for the two canals and three white lines for the sides of the city that aren’t a Great Lake.
35. The world’s very first skyscraper was the Home Insurance Company in Chicago. Unfortunately it was demolished and replaced by the Field Building.
36. The Lager Beer Riot was actually an insurgence on a bridge downtown, where at least one person had to have an arm amputated.
37. Chicago has the most impressionist paintings of any place in North America (the most in the world if you don’t count Paris).
38. Nabisco, Keebler and Wrigley Gum all got their start in The City That Works.
39. The Windy City may be the most commonly misunderstood nickname for
Chicago, but “The City of Broad Shoulders” is definitely the most underused.
40. Chicago is named for some stinky onions an explorer passed by one time (the whole city was built on a prairie swamp).
41. The world’s longest street is Chicago’s Western Avenue, stretching 23.5 miles.
42. The Briggs Hotel continued to function when it was literally raised four feet to avoid flooding that was plaguing Chicago.
43. The very first planetarium in America still stands in Chicago, opened in 1930.
44. Right next to that planetarium is the world’s largest indoor aquarium.
45. Chicago was the first city to send off a commercial airplane flight, in 1927 to San Francisco.
46. The Harold Washington Library Center, located right off one of the city’s major ‘L’ stops, is the world’s largest library.
47. And Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo is the biggest in the world too.
48. One of the world’s largest sculptures, the giant chrome kidney bean located in Millenium Park, is actually called “Cloud Gate”.
49. Hugh Hefner started Playboy (and the age of teenage boys stealing Playboys) in 1953.
50. Chicago is called the Second City only because it was the second city in America after New York to experience the same kind of population growth.
Feature Image: Flickr user britta heise
What's your favorite fun Chicago fact? Let us know in the comments below! 
