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Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 14, according to the Tribune’s archives.

Is an important event missing from this date? Email us .

Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago )

High temperature: 66 degrees (1975)

Low temperature: Minus 9 degrees (1901)

Precipitation: 1.43 inches (2011)

Snowfall: 10 inches (1951)

1908: Revelers slopped up 10,000 quarts of champagne and 30,000 quarts of beer at the Coliseum on South Wabash Avenue during the First Ward Ball . For more than a decade, it had been the city’s most notorious party .

Its hosts were “Bathhouse” John J. Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna. They conceived the First Ward Ball as a way of further stuffing their pock

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