Inside Report (6)

Christopher Columbus may have landed in the Bahamas, but Chicago wants to give the 500th anniversary party. The Windy City is lobbying hard to host a 1992 world's fair honoring Columbus's discovery of North America.

In a 900-page proposal, Chicago has told the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the 38-member treaty organization that will choose the host city, that the city will even fill in 200 more acres of Lake Michigan to create more open space. The key complication: Paris has proposed hosting a world's fair in 1989 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French revolution. BIE rules forbid world's fairs from being held within seven years of each other.

The span used to be 10 years and backers of both the Chicago and Paris fairs are hoping for a compromise of some sort. Deadline for a decision, says the BIE, is June 24.