Darien, Illinois

Downers Grove Township is one of nine townships in DuPage County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2020 census, its population was 149,921 and it contained 61,933 housing units. It is the largest township in the county, both in terms of area and population.

The National Shrine & Museum of St. Therese in Darien, Illinois is a Roman Catholic shrine dedicated to St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. The Shrine is a part of the Aylesford Carmelite campus, run by the Carmelite Order, Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary. The National Shrine & Museum of St. Therese is supported and served by the Society of the Little Flower, a religious organization dedicated to promoting devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux .

Edward Paul Krynski (September 12, 1927 – November 15, 2004) was a pinball game designer and innovator who worked for D. Gottlieb & Co between 1965 and 1984. During this time Krynski designed more than 200 games and innovated new pinball standards such as the laneways to the flipper, carousel targets, vari-targets, multiple drop targets, and the first solid state pinball machine with the speaker in the backbox instead of the bottom cabinet. Krynski is a member of the Pinball Hall of Fame. The first pinball machine designed by Krynski was Hi Straight, released in December 1959, and the last was El Dorado City of Gold, in October 1984. The Internet Pinball Machine Database identifies 225 machines designed by Krynski, including "300", 2001, 4 Square, The Amazing Spider-Man, El Dorado City of Gold, Genie, Spirit of 76, Central Park, Royal Flush, Big Shot, and Sing Along.Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man and public face of Marvel Comics, claimed ownership of one of Krynski's first The Amazing Spider-Man pinball machines off the assembly line in 1980 and kept it in his Marvel office until he auctioned it as part of his "Stan Lee collection". Lee said that "Over the years, I have spent countless frustrating yet perversely enjoyable hours attempting to play on it, as have numerous colleagues, friends and business associates (some quite famous, though a combination of modesty, shame and my legendary bad memory prevents me from divulging their names here) during their unrelenting pilgrimages to my office. In fact, I think many of these scions of arts and industry came over JUST to beat me up at pinball. I hope its new owner will be a better player than I am."Krynski served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

James William "Jim" Robinson Jr. (August 30, 1940 – April 11, 1966) was an American soldier and a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor. Robinson earned the award while serving with the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He was a Sergeant (E-5) in the infantry when he was killed under heroic circumstances on April 11, 1966, at age 25.

Waterfall Glen is a forest preserve in Downers Grove Township, DuPage County, Illinois, between the towns of Darien and Lemont, covering 2,492 acres (1,008 ha). It contains several waterfalls on Sawmill Creek as it empties into the Des Plaines River. Rocky Glen Falls, the largest waterfall in the preserve, is actually a natural dam in the valley glen. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps helped restore the waterfall to its naturally tiered state, after years of erosion due to runoff from a nearby mill. It completely surrounds Argonne National Laboratory. It is also home to a popular model airplane field, located in the southwest section of the forest preserve. Hikers can also make the interior trip to St. Patrick Cemetery nestled deep in the preserve. Waterfall Glen's tallgrass prairies, bogs, and Midwestern oak savannas contain 740 native plant species, 75 percent of all the plants known to grow naturally in DuPage County. Over 300 species of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles and another 300 species of invertebrates use the forest preserve, either year-round or during their migrations.

Darien Sportsplex Ice Arena is an arena and recreational sport facility in Darien, Illinois, United States. It features three NHL size sheets of ice for hockey, figure skating, and open skating. The facility also has a full-size indoor field house, a meeting room, an ice hockey Pro Shop, a concession stand, and a hockey training center. Current seating capacity for ice hockey games is 1,250. The arena has many programs that accommodate all ages. The Spring Hockey League is for kids in high school. Little Hawks Camp offers many activities. In Learn to Skate, a child and or adult of any age is taught how to skate for the purpose of playing hockey in the future. Learn to Play is an offshoot of Learn to Skate. This is for children four to ten years old who are taught by teachers who have a background in hockey, to teach the natural progression of the game itself. Drills for Skills is for kids 14 years and younger, who are trained to maintain and develop the technical aspects of playing hockey. The In-House Leagues is for players who are ready for team play, have gone through a tryout, and have been chosen as part of a team. The 3ON3 League offers a faster pace of hockey, designed to give players the opportunity to play with the puck more and develop self-control on the ice. The Sportsplex's figure skating program includes Skate School, which is designed to help kid and adult who are interested in learning how to skate, whether for fun or competitively. Tryouts determine participants' placement and instructors. Soccer activities at the Sportsplex include the Eclipse Select Super Rec League. This includes kids in preschool through eighth grade, who are placed on teams. Kids of different ages play one another and develop soccer skills on practice days. The LDL Skills School (Live it, Dream it, Love it) is designed for players to gain technique and confidence in the game of soccer. The facility also offers adult soccer leagues. The arena has open public skating, which allows anyone who wishes to free skate on certain days. There is a resident fee and a non-resident fee. Rat Hockey allows participants who are eighteen years or older to form a team and play on specific days. SEASPAR is also held in the meeting room. The three ice arenas, meeting room, and field house are all available for rental. Pricing is dependent on the length of time of the rental. The arena is home to the Chicago Hawks Hockey Club, Darien Figure Skating School, Darien Youth Club, and the Illinois High School Hockey League.

The Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) is a U.S. Department of Energy scientific user facility at Argonne National Laboratory. ATLAS is the first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier and is open to scientists from all over the world. The ATLAS accelerator at Argonne should not be confused with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Center Cass School District 66 is a public school district located in Downers Grove, Illinois, in DuPage County. The district serves about 1,300 students in grades K-8. Center Cass District 66 currently consists of Elizabeth Ide School (grades K-2), Prairieview Elementary School (grades 3-5) and Lakeview Jr. High School (grades 6-8). These elementary and junior high schools each feed into Downers Grove South High School (Community High School District 99). Center Cass School District is named after Center Cass School, which was once a part of the district. Prairieview School was built to replace Center Cass through 1999-2000.

Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago. The facility is the largest national laboratory in the Midwest. Argonne had its beginnings in the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, formed in part to carry out Enrico Fermi's work on nuclear reactors for the Manhattan Project during World War II. After the war, it was designated as the first national laboratory in the United States on July 1, 1946. In its first decades, the laboratory was a hub for peaceful use of nuclear physics; nearly all operating commercial nuclear power plants around the world have roots in Argonne research. More than 1,000 scientists conduct research at the laboratory, in the fields of energy storage and renewable energy; fundamental research in physics, chemistry, and materials science; environmental sustainability; supercomputing; and national security. Argonne formerly ran a smaller facility called Argonne National Laboratory-West (or simply Argonne-West) in Idaho next to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. In 2005, the two Idaho-based laboratories merged to become the Idaho National Laboratory.Argonne is a part of the expanding Illinois Technology and Research Corridor.

Willowbrook is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 9,236. It is a southwestern suburb of Chicago.

Chicago Pile-5 (CP-5) was the last of the line of Chicago Pile research reactors which started with CP-1 in 1942. The first reactor built on the Argonne National Laboratory campus in DuPage county, it operated from 1954-1979.CP-5 was a thermal-neutron reactor using enriched uranium as fuel and heavy water as coolant and as a neutron moderator. It produced neutrons for use in research. The reactor had an output rating of 5 megawatts.Cleanup and decommissioning of the site of CP-5 was started in 1991 completed in 2000. The cleanup process included removal of all contaminated equipment and spent fuel, decontamination of the reactor vessel and associated plumbing, and removal of the spent fuel pool, reactor internals and the hot cell liner. The accessible areas of the structure have been certified as having radiation levels equivalent to background radiation.

TWA Flight 529 was a Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, registration N86511, operating as a scheduled passenger service from Boston, Massachusetts to San Francisco, California. On September 1, 1961, at 02:05 CDT, the flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Midway Airport (ICAO: KMDW) in Chicago, killing all 73 passengers and five crew on board; it was at the time the deadliest single plane disaster in U.S. history.The accident was investigated by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which concluded its probable cause was the loss of a 5/16 inch bolt which fell out of the elevator control mechanism during the climb from Chicago, resulting in an abrupt pitch up followed by a stall and crash.