Illinois

Illinois is a U.S. state located in the continental United States. It is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and western Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is an important transportation hub; the Port of Chicago connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River.

Babylon 5
Illinois is the place of birth of Stephen Franklin, who was born in Chicago in the year 2220. Franklin served as the second Chief Medical Officer aboard the space station Babylon 5 from 2258 to 2262. Coincidentally, series star Bruce Boxleitner, who plays Captain John Sheridan, was also born in Illinois. He was born in Elgin on May 12th, 1950.

Space Odyssey
In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Urbana, Illinois was the site of the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic Computer plant, the facility responsible for developing the HAL 9000 computer system, which was later used as the operating control systems on the Discovery One shuttle. The HAL 9000 computer was developed by Doctor Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai and was brought online on January 12th, 1997.

Points of Interest

 * Urbana: Urbana is the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois. Most of the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is located here. Urbana is where the HAL 9000 artificial intelligence was first designed.

Films that take place in

 * Transformers: Dark of the Moon
 * Weird Science

TV shows that take place in

 * Biker Mice from Mars (1993 TV series)
 * Biker Mice from Mars (2006 TV series)
 * Timecop
 * "Public Enemy"

Characters from

 * Charley Davidson
 * Greasepit
 * HAL 9000
 * Stephen Franklin

People who were born in

 * Adam Baldwin
 * Albert Glasser
 * André Bormanis
 * Andy Wachowski
 * Bruce Boxleitner
 * Colin Strause
 * Deanna Lund
 * Daryl Hannah
 * Don Siegel
 * Doug Wax
 * Edward Mann
 * Eric Forsberg
 * Gillian Anderson
 * Greg Strause
 * Harrison Ford
 * Harve Bennett
 * Helen Horton
 * Henry Myers
 * Howard Keel
 * Jeff Austin
 * Jennifer Lien
 * Jennifer Rhodes
 * Joan Taylor
 * John Logan
 * Larry Wachowski
 * Mel Tormé
 * Michael Crichton
 * Michael O'Hare
 * Nichelle Nichols
 * Oliver Crawford
 * Philip Kaufman
 * Philip Yordan
 * Reiko Aylesworth
 * Richard Fancy
 * Stuart Gordon
 * Terry Brooks
 * Tom Towles
 * Tyler Bates
 * Virgil W. Vogel
 * Walter Koenig

Notes & Trivia

 * Scenes of the high school and shopping mall featured in the 1985 comedy film Weird Science were filmed at Niles East High School in Skokie, Illinois and Northbrook Court Mall in Northbrook, Illinois. Director John Hughes attended high school in Northbrook.