Adam Harrington is a digital producer at CBS Chicago, where he first arrived in January 2006.
Chicago celebrated Pulaski Day on Monday, honoring the Polish general who died fighting for America's freedom in the Revolutionary War.
Mayor Brandon Johnson was to speak at the Polish Museum of America for the holiday.
Because of the celebration, all Chicago and Cook County government offices and courts are also closed. Chicago public libraries are also closed.
Chicago Public Schools students used to get Pulaski Day off, but not anymore. Schools were open on Monday.
CPS eliminated Pulaski Day as a holiday in 2012 as part of an effort to add more student attendance days, to the objection of some in Chicago's Polish community.
As noted in historical accounts, Illinois state Sen. Norbert Kosinski introduced legislation on June 26, 1977, to honor Gen. Pulaski on the first Monday of every March. The legislation was approved, and official Casimir Pulaski Day celebrations were held beginning in 1978.
In 1986, Gov. James Thompson signed a bill making Pulaski Day an official holiday and calling for public schools to close. In 1995, state lawmakers made it optional for school districts to give students the day off.
Mayor Harold Washington also formalized Pulaski Day as an official Chicago holiday with a resolution on Feb. 26, 1986, which went on to be approved by the City Council. The first official Chicago Pulaski Day celebration followed on Sunday, March 2, 1986 -- 40 years ago Monday to the day.
Mayor Washington said at the time that we honor Pulaski "not only for his heroics in fighting for the freedom Poland was never able to achieve, but for fighting for the freedom which America did achieve, and thus forming a new homeland for Poland's people to come to."
Casimir Pulaski was born in Warsaw in what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 1740s, published reports noted. According to the American Battlefield Trust, Pulaski led an unsuccessful rebellion against Russian influence and the pro-Russian elected king in Poland.
Pulaski fled to Prussia, the Ottoman Empire, and lastly France, where he met Benjamin Franklin in 1777, the American Battlefield Trust recounted. Pulaski was recruited to come to America for the Revolutionary War in 1777, and first fought the British in the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11 of that year.
Pulaski was credited with saving Gen. George Washington's life in the battle, an achievement for which he was promoted to brigadier general.
Pulaski was mortally wounded during the Siege of Savannah in 1779.