Today is Saturday, May 24, the 144th day of 2003. There are 221 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Saturday, May 24, the 144th day of 2003. There are 221 days left in the year. On this date in 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmits the message, "What hath God wrought!" from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opens America's first telegraph line.
In 1819, Queen Victoria is born in London. In 1881, some 200 people die when the Canadian ferry "Princess Victoria" sinks near London, Ontario. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, is opened to traffic. In 1941, the German battleship Bismarck sinks the British dreadnought Hood in the North Atlantic. In 1958, United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. In 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter becomes the second American to orbit the Earth as he flies aboard Aurora 7. In 1976, Britain and France open transatlantic Concorde service to Washington. In 1977, in a surprise move, the Kremlin ousts Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny from the Communist Party's ruling Politburo. In 1980, Iran rejects a call by the World Court in The Hague to release American hostages. In 1995, former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson dies in London at age 79.
May 24, 1978: Some of the top steel executives in the nation meet in New York for the 86th general meeting of the American Iron & amp; Steel Institute and generally are unconvinced that the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley will be able to revitalize the Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co.'s partially closed Campbell Works. The main impediment: the cost of $450 million to $750 million.
The Ohio Edison Co. had an 8 percent increase in net profits in 1977 and East Ohio Gas. Co 's 1977 return of equity was 18.7 percent, the highest of Ohio's 13 largest utilities, says the Ohio Consumers' Council..
May 24, 1963: Frost and freezing damage to berry, fruit, vegetable and floral crops in the Mahoning Valley during six hours of below-freezing temperatures is expected to reach thousands of dollars. The mercury dropped to 25 degrees overnight.
Herbert W. Osgood, president and general manager of the Reichart Furniture Co. in Youngstown since its opening in 1936, announces that he has sold his interest in the company to Reichart Furniture Co. of Wheeling, W.Va.
Little League baseball at Lake Milton is interrupted when a truck loaded with 20-foot long steel bars overturns, dumping its load on the field. None of the ballplayers was injured, but games were called until the tons of steel could be removed from the field.
May 24, 1953: Junior high school boys at Boardman School are baking cakes, scrubbing floors and ironing shirts, while girls are learning to wield hammer and saw in a six-week exchange program between the home economics and industrial arts departments.
Music by 2,000 young choristers and instrumentalists fill the South High Field House when parochial schools of the Youngstown district present their second music festival before an audience of 3,000 priests, nuns and parents.
Two stock car drivers are injured, one seriously, in a flaming six-car crack-up on the back stretch of the Canfield Speedway in front of 6,200 fans. Gene Showers of Newton Falls was reported badly burned; Art Lenney of Warren received cuts and minor burns. Driver Max Bump of Cortland, the first driver to reach Showers' car, was credited with saving him by climbing on the hood and pulling Showers through the windshield opening.
May 24, 1928: The city of Youngstown will file suit to appropriate land from George Welker adjacent to the Lansdowne Airport so that trees can be cut down and air mail service restored to Youngstown. The field has been leveled and all that remains to be done is the trees removed so that air mail planes can safely land at the city airport.
William H. Peterson, former Youngstown plumbing inspector, pleads not guilty to charges of embezzlement of public funds and is released on bond of $5,000.
Atty. Erskine Maiden catalogs the accomplishments of the Republican Party in an address to the Exchange Club at the downtown YMCA. Since 1859, he points out, the party has always upheld the protective tariff and it had a great part in freeing 4 million slaves after the Civil War.