Years Ago

Today is Saturday, May 18, the 138th day of 2013. There are 227 days left in the year.

Associated Press

On this date in:

1896: The Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorses “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept renounced 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a measure creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1944: During World War II, Allied forces finally occupy Monte Cassino in Italy after a long struggle with Axis troops.

1953: Jacqueline Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier as she pilots a Canadair F-86 Sabre jet over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif.

1969: Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blast off aboard Apollo 10 on a mission to orbit the moon.

1973: Harvard law professor Archibald Cox is appointed Watergate special prosecutor by U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson.

1980: The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state explodes, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

1991: Helen Sharman becomes the first Briton to rocket into space as she flies aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft to the Mir space station.

Vindicator files

1988: Some North Side residents want their neighborhood to be designated a historic district, which would protect the flavor of the area.

Trumbull County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating smoke-bomb attacks on an Amish buggy driver, the second incident involving the harassment of Amish in the West Farmington area.

Efforts to convince Youngstown City Council that a port authority for Youngstown Municipal Airport would bring in jobs and industry and benefit all of the Mahoning Valley are gaining momentum.

1973: Mayor Jack C. Hunter unveils the latest plan for renovation of Central Square, which calls for a $1.7 million pedestrian mall on Federal Street from Phelps to Walnut Street.

Wean United Inc. books a $30 million order to supply a 66-inch semi-continuous hot strip mill for Eregli Demir ve Cleik Fabrikalari of Turkey.

Edward J. DeBartolo, the nation’s leading plaza builder, confirms that he has purchased the Balmoral Race Track and 1,044 surrounding acres 25 miles south of Chicago, near Crete, Ill.

1963: Police say a sadistic killer stabbed Joseph D. Suraci Jr., 25, between 30 and 40 times. Suraci was a vice president and demolition expert for Beck Inc. His body was found in a company car across from Mary Haddow Elementary School.

St. Michael Church is under construction on a 15-acre site on Route 46 at a cost of $382,000.

Dr. John W. “Jack” Wilce, who coached Ohio State football teams into national prominence and then retired “because they were taking the game away from the boys,” dies at his Columbus home at the age of 75.

1938: Joseph Kupko, 30-year-old steel worker of 2343 Carlton St. is shot and killed by Detective Earl Hoffman in a fracas on Front Street following an alleged attack on a woman by three men.

Mahoning County Judge George H. Gessner signs an order allowing Youngstown to collect an $8,236 shortage from Hugh D. Hindman, former city finance director under Mayor Mark E. Moore.

Judge Fred G. Bale of Columbus tells 250 ministers and laymen at the semi-annual Youngstown District Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Indianola Methodist Church that liquor is a greater menace to America than ever before.