Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Chicago originates from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami, Illinois word shikaakwa, which translates to both skunk and ramps, a wild relative of onion and garlic known to botanists as Allium tricoccum.
On the 8th of October 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about four miles long and three miles wide, killing at least 300 people and leaving over 100,000 homeless.
During the rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, the Home Insurance Building, which utilized steel-skeleton construction to set a precedent for worldwide construction.
In 1900, the city completed a major project that reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it to save the city's primary freshwater source from sewage contamination.
This period, spanning from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed, saw Chicago become the epicenter of organized crime with gangsters including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran, and Tony Accardo battling law enforcement and each other.
During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 to 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 to 1945.