Today is Friday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2003. There are 110 days left in the year. On this date

Today is Friday, Sept. 12, the 255th day of 2003. There are 110 days left in the year. On this date in 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson sails into the river that now bears his name.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler demands self-determination for the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. In 1943, German paratroopers take Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by the Italian government. In 1944, during World War II, U.S. Army troops enter Germany for the first time, near Trier. In 1953, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Newport, R.I. In 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addresses the issue of his Roman Catholicism, telling a Protestant group in Houston, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."
September 12, 1978: A regional council of federal agencies has established a task force to expedite government assistance to the Mahoning Valley. The unprecedented action suggests the U.S. may funnel millions of dollars to the Valley through the 10 cooperating agencies.
Youngstown and eight other Ohio cities are named as defendants in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church claiming the cities will not allow church members to solicit funds and hand out literature.
The state controlling board releases $2 million to Youngstown Osteopathic Hospital for the construction of clinical teaching facilities that will be used by Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine.
September 12, 1963: Youngstown University opens fall classes with 8,650 students, an increase of 250 students from a year earlier and the highest enrollment in its history. There are 1,470 new freshmen, of whom 1,349 are fullime.
Mahoning County's common pleas judges reject a proposal that the courthouse be turned into an temporary art gallery Nov. 9 and 10 as an inappropriate use of the building. Friends of American Art had hoped to sell the pictures on exhibit, with proceeds going to support Project Hope, the American medical mercy ship
May Thompson Williamson, widow of real estate developer Warren P. Williamson Sr., and mother of WKBN President Warren P. Williams Jr., dies at her home at 4305 Southern Blvd. Since coming to Youngstown in 188, she had held a position of prominence in the community as a teacher, club and church leader. She was 96.
September 12, 1953: William Pesa, prominent Youngstown contractor, is killed and a construction supervisor injured when a roof collapses during construction of the Malone-Day warehouse in Youngstown Road, Warren. Pesa was 48.
A robbery ring of five gunmen that has been responsible for at least five recent robberies in the Youngstown area is smashed by police. The latest robbery was the $178 stick-up of the Struthers Beer Center.
The House un-American Activities Committee releases previously secret testimony alleging that 600 U.S. clergymen are members of the Communist Party. One witness, Benjamin Gitlow of New York, testifies that, "in the infiltration of the Methodist Church, the Communists were highly successful." The committee finds, however, that TV Comedian Lucille Ball was never a Communist, although she had registered to vote as one 17 years earlier at the urging of her grandfather.
September 12, 1928: Goodyear's dirigible Puritan, which visited Youngstown for the reopening of Lansdowne Field, is caught in 53-mph winds as it approaches Detroit. During a 35-minute battle against the gale, the ship is buffeted and overturned, but Pilots A.J. Boettner and Vernon Smith managed to get her nose turned into the wind and land her safely.
A.J. Aubrey, dismissed water commissioner, accuses Mayor Joseph Heffernan of retaliating against Aubrey for not transferring $600 in water works funds to the mayor's election campaign and of consistently favoring the hiring and appointment of Catholics since coming to office.