Interstate 355 is an Interstate Highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Like other tollways in the northeastern portion of the state, I-355 is maintained by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. I-355 runs from Interstate 80 in New Lenox north to Interstate 290 in Itasca, a distance of 32.5 miles (52.3 km). The tollway authority opened I-355 as the North–South Tollway in 1989 to ease congestion on Illinois Route 53 (IL 53), a parallel two-lane state highway in central DuPage County. Initially, I-355 ran from Interstate 55 north to I-290. The new highway helped cut travel times for commuters traveling north and south in the county. According to commercial real estate developers at the time, the new tollway also opened the western suburbs of Chicago to commercial and industrial development. On November 11, 2007, the tollway authority opened a southern extension of I-355 from I-55 to I-80, a distance of 12.5 miles (20.1 km); on its opening, the tollway authority changed the name of the tollway to "Veterans Memorial Tollway". The tollway authority laid the route of the new extension through Will County and a small portion of Cook County, one of the fastest-growing regions in Illinois. The tollway authority expects the extension to cut travel times in the region by 20 percent.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_355

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1737:

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy, currently the oldest active opera house in Europe, was inaugurated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teatro_di_San_Carlo

1791:

Northwest Indian War: In the most severe defeat ever suffered by the United States at the hands of American Indians, the Western Confederacy won a major victory at the Battle of the Wabash near present-day Fort Recovery in Ohio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clair%27s_Defeat

1852:

Count Cavour became prime minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become the Kingdom of Italy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillo_Benso%2C_conte_di_Cavour

1869:

Nature, one of the oldest and most reputable general purpose scientific journals, was first published. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28journal%29

1890:

London's City and South London Railway, the first deep-level underground railway in the world, opened, running a distance of 5.1 km (3.2 mi) between the City of London and Stockwell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_and_South_London_Railway

1995:

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was mortally wounded by Yigal Amir while at a peace rally at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

waspish (adj): 1. Suggestive of the behaviour of a wasp. 2. Spiteful or irascible http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/waspish

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. --Will Rogers http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Rogers