Illinois's early history in the United States is one without the typical urban touchstone of Chicago. In this episode, Brian & Lyman discusses downstate Illinois, "Little Egypt," and the politically volatile mixing of Yankees and Upland Southerners that lead to yet another interesting clash over the fate of slavery in the Northwest Territory.

And yes, we know, Illinois's Cairo is pronounced "KAY-ro" or "CARE-o", but we opted to use the classic Egyptian pronunciation. We wanted to make obvious the Egypt connection. We Kentuckians have our own share of towns with pronunciations that make no sense in the context of their Old World namesakes or antecedents: Louisville ("LUHL-vull"), Versailles ("Ver-SAILS"), and Athens ("AY-thenz"), just to name a few.