Every week the Daily Illini will dig through our archives to find some of our best, most interesting and bizarre stories for this week in history. This week we found out about university sexism, a fire at Sigma Chi and a series of residence hall armed robberies from Oct. 19 to Oct. 25.

October 28, 1943

The Russian army force chased the retreating German Nazi army through towns 48 miles into the Southern Ukrainian mountains and killed around 3,000 soldiers. The fighting, termed “super-battle,” saw the Russians capture a total of more than 120 towns and raid their gun and convenience stores along the way.

October 25, 1961

The Student Peace Union marched from the Illini Union to the Western Union telegraph office in Champaign to protest recent Russian nuclear tests. The student protesters, carrying signs saying “neither red nor dead” and “no contamination without representation,” sent two telegraphs to Soviet diplomats upon reaching the telegraph office. The telegraph condemning nuclear weapons was sent to the Soviet delegation at the United Nations and to the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C.

October 24, 1972

A series of armed robberies occurred in the Peabody Drive Residence Complex, fueling speculation that the robberies were committed by the same group of four men. Two robberies occurred in Scott Hall on Oct. 27 as two separate residents reported a group of four men stormed into their rooms, produced two small caliber pistols and ransacked their rooms demanding money and narcotics. About $100 worth of coins were stolen and a trunk was broken. On Sept. 30, a graduate student in Weston Hall reported four men armed with one small revolver stole his wallet and his watch. The reported financial damage was about $34. Unconfirmed rumors also claimed two other similar robberies had taken place at Scott Hall and Snyder Hall.

October 19, 1973

A 90 minute fire caused $60,000 to $100,000 worth of damage to the Sigma Chi fraternity house at 410 E. John St. in Champaign. None of the 72 members were injured. The fraternity members noticed the blaze around 5:30 p.m. while they were eating dinner after they noticed a woman in the street pointing at the house and yelling. The members first tried to put on the fire by themselves while others removed items from their rooms, but soon smoke filled the house. The Champaign and University fire departments put out the attic fire, but Sigma Chi members were forced to move into the old Pi Lambda Phi house at 52 E. Armory. The house was built in 1890.

October 23, 1973

A panel of university staff and students claimed Monday Oct. 22 that the University of Illinois partook in sexist hiring, admission, promotion and salary practices. Marianne Ferber, assistant professor in economics said a 1968 comprehensive study showed, “Only 17 percent of the faculty were women… and only four percent of the full professors were women.” Ferber also explained that pay gaps also existed at the university between men and women professors of similar rank and that the gaps increased as the rank increased. Celia Lavatelli, professor of elementary education, said that she hadn’t realized that there was pay discrimination at the university because the university had “conned me about salaries… I discovered that males with the same qualifications as mine were paid as much as $1,000 more.”