January 13, 1979: A major blizzard hits the Chicago metropolitan area. Over the course of the 13th and the 14th, 29 inches fall, nearly two and a half feet. To make matters worse, wind gusts reach speeds of 39 miles per hour. Five people are killed as a result.
O'Hare International Airport was closed, and all flights were grounded for 96 hours. The elevated railway (or "L") tracks. Buses were overloaded, and had trouble getting through anyway.
It takes longer than it should to get the snowplows out, and thus many people couldn't get onto the buses and the L, anyway. The blame fell on Michael Bilandic, who had won the special election for Mayor following the death of longtime Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1976.
Many Republicans, knowing that their Party hadn't elected a Mayor since Big Bill Thompson in 1927, saw their chance to punish the Democratic machine that had won 12 straight elections (the last 6 by Daley), and crossed over to vote for the city's former chairwoman of consumer affairs, Jane Byrne. She was also endorsed by the best-known black person in Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. She needed all of this support: She beat Bilandic in the Primary by less than 17,000 votes, and then overwhelmingly won the general election, to become Chicago's 1st female Mayor.
Parallels were drawn to the 1969 New York blizzard to which Mayor John Lindsay had a slow response, and thus was denied renomination by the Republican Party. But he won on a 3rd-party ticket. Bilandic did not politically survive his slow response. If he had acted faster, he could, like Daley, have been Mayor for the rest of his life: He lived until 2002.
As it was, in 1990, Governor Jim Thompson (no relation to corrupt old Big Bill) appointed him to the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1990, and the next Governor, Jim Edgar, promoted him to Chief Justice in 1993. Bilandic served as Chief Justice until retiring in 1997.
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January 13, 1979 was a Saturday. It was the off-season for Major League Baseball. It was the off-week between the NFC and AFC Championships and Super Bowl XIII, which the Pittsburgh Steelers would win over the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
There were 5 games played in the NBA that day. Neither the New York Knicks nor the New Jersey Nets were involved in them:
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the San Diego Clippers, 124-119 at The Omni in Atlanta. Lloyd Free, nicknamed "All-World," scored 46 for the Clippers, but it wasn't enough, as John Drew's 36 led a more successful Hawks attack. Free would legally change his name to "World B. Free" in 1981. The Clippers moved to Los Angeles in 1984.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Golden State Warriors, 114-109 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. Bob Lanier, the man with "the two biggest feets in basketball," but also a man who would rightly be named to the Hall of Fame and the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players, scored 36 for the Pistons.
* The Houston Rockets beat the New Orleans Jazz, 117-106 at The Summit in Houston. For the Rockets, future head coach Rudy Tomjanovich scored 26 points, and Moses Malone added 25. Spencer Haywood led the Jazz with 23 points. Pistol Pete Maravich did not play.
The Summit has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch." The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City the next season, trading the logical name "New Orleans Jazz" for the shake-your-head name of "Utah Jazz."
* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 117-103 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio. George Gervin, "the Iceman," scored 29 for the Spurs, while James Silas, "Captain Late," scored 27.
* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Phoenix Suns, 102-99 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
The Chicago Bulls were lucky. They played at home at the Chicago Stadium the night before the blizzard, losing 100-93 to the Hawks, and were able to reach Milwaukee, just 90 miles away but not nearly as affected by the snowstorm, to play on the 14th. They lost to the Bucks, 104-99.
There were 6 games played in the NHL. Neither the New York Rangers nor the New York Islanders were involved in them:
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-2 at the Montreal Forum.
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Boston Bruins, 5-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Rockies would move in 1982, becoming the New Jersey Devils. A baseball team named the Colorado Rockies began play in Denver in 1993.
* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Detroit Red Wings, 7-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. At least the Black Hawks -- written as two words until 1986 -- were on the road, and didn't have to postpone any games due to the blizzard.
* And the Vancouver Canucks and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 3-3 at the St. Louis Arena, then known as the Checkerdome in honor of the "Checkerboard Square" logo of the Blues' owners, the St. Louis-based Ralston-Purina Company.
The 1978-79 season was the last one for the World Hockey Association:
* The Edmonton Oilers beat the New England Whalers, 3-0 at the Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Whalers were playing there while repairs were being made to the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Whalers and the Oilers were admitted to the NHL the next season, as were the Winnipeg Jets and the Quebec Nordiques. The Whalers changed their name to the Hartford Whalers, and moved back into the Hartford Civic Center in 1980, staying until 1997, when they moved to North Carolina, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes.
* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Birmingham Bulls, 3-1 at the Jefferson County Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
* The Nordiques and the Cincinnati Stingers were not scheduled to play that day.
Also Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest, 2-1 at Highbury in North London.
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