Banjo player and guitarist Buck Trent, a two-time CMA
instrumental group of the year winner and a prominent
member of the cast of the variety show Hee Haw, died
on Monday (Oct. 9) at age 85.

On October 8, 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick
and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that killed
between 200 and 300 people, destroyed 17,450 buildings, left
100,000 homeless and caused an estimated $200 million
(in 1871 dollars; roughly $4 billion in 2021 dollars) in damages.

Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn
and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even
a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four
square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in
ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets
and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire.

ROSS SIMPSON

The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American part-talkie musical drama
film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros.
Pictures. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronous singing
and speech (in several isolated sequences).

Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound
films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era
with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Al Jolson (1886 – 1950) as Jack Robin on stage, in a
publicity shot representing the film’s final scene.

CHICAGO (WICS/WICD) — Illinois and Bears great Dick
Butkus passed away on Thursday. 

The Chicago Bears confirmed the news of the passing.

The team said Butkus died in his sleep overnight at his
home in Malibu, California. 

In August 2001, Butkus underwent quintuple bypass
surgery to remove blockages in his arteries.

At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson
was acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged
wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.