Today is Wednesday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2005. There are 262 days left in the year. On this

Today is Wednesday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2005. There are 262 days left in the year. On this date in 1970, Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, is crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen bursts. (The astronauts manage to return safely.)
In 1598, King Henry IV of France endorses the Edict of Nantes, which grants rights to the Protestant Huguenots. (The edict is abrogated in 1685 by King Louis XIV, who declares France entirely Catholic again.) In 1742, Handel's "Messiah" is first performed publicly, in Dublin, Ireland. In 1743, the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, is born. In 1870, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded in New York. In 1943, President Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial. In 1958, Van Cliburn becomes the first American to win the Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow. In 1964, Sidney Poitier becomes the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for "Lilies of the Field." In 1965, 16-year-old Lawrence Wallace Bradford Jr. is appointed by New York Republican Jacob Javits to be the first black page of the U.S. Senate. In 1986, Pope John Paul II visits a Rome synagogue in the first recorded papal visit of its kind. In 1992, the Great Chicago Flood takes place as the city's century-old tunnel system and adjacent basements fill with water from the Chicago River.
April 13, 1980: Entertainer Danny Thomas visits St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center as part of the annual drive to raise funds here for St. Jude Children's Research Center in Memphis , Tenn., with which St. Elizabeth's is affiliated.
About 30 soggy "tubers" compete in the annual Hubbard Tube race, covering a 2.4-mile course on Yankee Run Lake, beginning at the Chestnut Ridge Road Bridge. Keith Romo wins in a record time of 1 hour, 5 minutes.
Edwin Taylor, a Trumbull County native who is executive director of the Ohio Lottery Commission, says the lottery is a lesser evil than alcohol. He says more people are buying alcohol who can't afford it than are buying lottery tickets - though he is not advocating abolition of the Ohio Liquor Control Board.
April 13, 1965: Ohio officials estimate that damage to 22 counties hit by tornadoes will total at least $50 million. At least 53 are known dead and more than 300 are injured. Heaviest damage was in the Toledo area.
The Youngstown Newspaper Guild, which called a strike against The Vindicator exactly 34 weeks earlier, ratifies an agreement to settle the strike.
The Reserve Officers Association asks the U.S. Senate to block a plan by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to realign the Army Reserves, which would merge some reservists into the National Guard and cut the Guard strength from 700,000 to 550,000.
April 13, 1955: George L. Winger, paymaster at National Malleable & amp; Steel castings. Co., is named to the Sharon Board of Education to succeed Robert M. Atwood, who resigned.
Bethlehem Steel Corp. and Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co. are working on a way to merge despite a government ruling that the combination would be anti-competitive and would create a monopoly.
Youngstown Police Chief Paul H. Cress launches a campaign against independent tax drivers for "habitually violating various sections of the city's taxi ordinance."
Doctors and health officials in communities across the nation, cheered by successful tests of the Salk vaccine, turn to the huge task of inoculating millions of children against polio.
Residents of the last two blocks of Elm Street and persons owning property there are protesting the operation of a furniture store and antique shop in residential property at 2514 Elm St.
April 13, 1930: The trackless trolley, an auto bus which gets its power from double overhead electric lines, is the latest thing in municipal transportation and Harry Engle, Youngstown's traction commissioner, says the trolley will be tested in Youngstown before long.
Now that shareholders have approved a merger of Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co. and Bethlehem Steel Corp., further mergers are seen on the horizon. A realignment of the steel industry could result in three or four large combinations.
The organization of a Citizen's Smoke Abatement League will cooperate with Youngstown officials to bring about enactment of an effective ordinance to regulate unnecessary dirt and smoke in the air. The bill will be patterned after a similar law in Pittsburgh.