Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Oct. 8, according to the Tribune’s archives.

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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago )

High temperature: 88 degrees (1997)

Low temperature: 27 degrees (1987)

Precipitation: 1.26 inches (1884)

Snowfall: None

1871: The Great Chicago Fire began in the hay-filled cow barn behind the frame house that Mrs. Catherine O’Leary shared with her husband, Patrick, and their five kids on De Koven Street on the Near West Side.

The fire ran and it grew, swept by a strong wind from the southwest, eating its ravenous way north and toward downtown and beyond. People ran to the lake for shelter as the city became a vast ocean of flame. After that hor

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