1889Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships voted to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest U.S. city in the area and second largest in population at the time.1972The U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Furman v. Georgia, which ruled that the death penalty could constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The case essentially struck down all state death penalty schemes, resulting in the states revising their death penalty statutes.