Years ago

Today is Monday, May 27, the 147th day of 2013. There are 218 days left in the year. This is the Memorial Day observance.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this date in:

1861: Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge in Baltimore, rules that President Abraham Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus (Lincoln disregarded the ruling).

1896: 255 people are killed when a tornado strikes St. Louis, Mo., and East St. Louis, Ill.

1929: Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. marries Anne Morrow in Englewood, N.J.

1935: The Supreme Court strikes down the National Industrial Recovery Act.

1936: The Cunard liner RMS Queen Mary leaves England on its maiden voyage to New York.

1941: The British Royal Navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck off France, with a loss of some 2,000 lives, three days after the Bismarck sank the HMS Hood.

1942: Navy Cook 3rd Class Doris “Dorie” Miller becomes the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross for his “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

1962: A dump fire in Centralia, Pa., ignites a blaze in underground coal deposits that continues to burn this day.

1993: Five people are killed in a bombing at the Uffizi museum of art in Florence, Italy.

2003: Two Iraqis shoot and kill two American soldiers in Fallujah, a hotbed of support for Saddam Hussein.

Vindicator files

1988: Gov. Richard F. Celeste tells state Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown that if the Legislature does not change the current political system for appointing Bureau of Motor Vehicle deputy registrars, Celeste will. The South Side Merchants and Civic Association has said it will let its license lapse rather than pay patronage to the Democratic Party under the present system.

An Ohio corrections officer is fired and a second demoted in connection with events that preceded the death of John Ingram, convicted murderer from Youngstown, in the state’s maximum security prison March 20. Ingram’s relatives maintain that his death was not of natural causes and the state’s investigation is a cover up.

1973: Vindicator business editor George Reiss writes that the basic steel industry, once seen as the hard-edged epitome of the American capitalistic system, is developing a new image as a “concerned neighbor” and “a reliable and responsible corporate citizen.”

The Mahoning Valley Society of Professional Engineers elects J. Robert Lyden its president and Mrs. Thomas Vahey president of the ladies auxiliary.

William Nye, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, will be the speaker at the dedication of Gaston’s Mill, the Thomas J. Malone Covered Bridge and the pioneer log cabin and school house at Beaver Creek State Park.

1963: The Rev. Hunsdon Cary Jr. rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, speaks at Youngstown University’s 41st annual baccalaureate service on “the four great challenges that face America today.”

A Brier Hill man, Joseph J. Ceja, 37, is seriously injured when his car goes out of control on Park Drive in Lincoln Park and plummets down a 35-foot embankment.

1938:A Mahoning County jury finds John Anthoulis, 48-year-old Stuebenville slot machine “king,” guilty in the gangland slaying of Roy “Happy” Marino.

Mahoning County Sheriff Ralph Elser smashes six marble boards confiscated in raids on three taverns and vows to stamp out “any form of gambling in the county.” There is speculation that Elser has his eye on a coming dog race in Craig Beach.

Youngstown Attorney William A. Fisher says the National Progressive Party will have a full ticket on the next ballot in Mahoning County.