Start at the nation’s first museum dedicated to freedom and the first amendment: McCormick Freedom Museum. Here you can explore the meaning of freedom around the world, compare your views of freedom with those of presidents and celebrities, and much more. 

Pritkzer Military Library showcases a remarkable collection of books, videos, posters, uniforms, and more that tell the story of the Citizen Soldier in American history. Other places where U.S. history was made include the site of Fort Dearborn, the country’s major military garrison until 1812; Confederate Mound at Oak Woods Cemetery – the largest Confederate soldier burial ground in the north; and the site of Camp Douglas where 18,000 captured Confederate soldiers were held prisoners of war.

Discover the people behind important events with visits to the tomb of Stephen A. Douglas, best-known for his senate race debates with Abraham Lincoln; Jane Addams’ Hull House, which became America’s most influential social settlement house; Barnett House, the home of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells. And make sure your itinerary includes the site of the Haymarket Riot; Pullman Historic District, America’s first planned company town; Grand Army of the Republic Hall in the Chicago Cultural Center; and view the G.A.R. Collection of Civil War military memorabilia housed at the Harold Washington Library Center.

See where, in 1942, the atomic age was born when physicist Enrico Fermi and his team of scientists working at the University of Chicago started, controlled and stopped a 28-minute nuclear chain reaction.

The Chicago History Museum is a local history treasure - wonderfully thorough in illuminating the city’s intriguing past, exciting present and promising future.

And be sure to include other locations where Chicago history happened such as the ignition point of the devastating fire of 1871, the Union Stockyard Gate leading to the meatpacking center made famous in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and Graceland Cemetery, the final resting place of such Chicago movers and shakers as Marshall Field, Daniel Burnham, and George Pullman.