Today is Wednesday, April 27, the 117th day of 2005. There are 248 days left in the year. On this

Today is Wednesday, April 27, the 117th day of 2005. There are 248 days left in the year. On this date in 1805, during the First Barbary War, an American-led force of Marines and mercenaries captures the city of Derna, on the shores of Tripoli.
In 1509, Pope Julius II excommunicates the Italian state of Venice. (The pope lifts the excommunication in February 1510.) In 1822, the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, is born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. In 1865, the steamer "Sultana" explodes on the Mississip-pi River near Memphis, Tenn., killing more than 1,400 Union prisoners of war. In 1937, the nation's first Social Security checks are distributed. In 1965, broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow dies in Pawling, N.Y., at age 57. In 1967, Expo '67 is officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. In 1973, during the Watergate scandal, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray resigns. In 1978, convicted Watergate defendant John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months.
April 27, 1980: The board of trustees increases full-time undergraduate tuition at Youngstown State University from $860 to $915 for a regular academic year beginning in the fall.
Youngstown area residents held their future in their hands during the Ecumenical Coalition's fight to reopen the Campbell Works and allowed it to slip through their fingers, says Dr. Terry Buss of YSU's Urban Studies Center. The net result, he predicts, will be years of plodding, trying to remember a past and dream of a future, without actually working to bring the dream to life.
David E. Evans, a Spanish teacher at Jackson-Milton High School 12 years, will no longer be faculty adviser to the school's newspaper because, some say, of an editorial critical of the school board's attempt to remove some books from the school library shelves.
April 27, 1965: Robert G. Zimmerman, manager of Ohio Edison Co.'s Youngstown division, has been named manager of the Akron division and will be succeeded by C.B. Olds, now manager of the Marion division.
Paul E. Smith, superintendent of Salem schools since 1959, resigns as a result of what he terms "certain pressures" facing the board of education. Smith has been under pressure since the defeat in the fall of a $800,000 school bond issue.
The 7th District Court of Appeals reverses Common Pleas Judge Sidney Rigelhaupt's order sentencing 14 witnesses on contempt of court charges as punishment for refusing to answer questions before the September 1963 Mahoning County Grand Jury investigating crime, vice and bribery of public officials.
April 27, 1955: Youngstown City Council authorizes the installation of six new traffic signals downtown, with new lights placed on Boardman Street at Hazel, Phelps, Champion and Walnut streets and on Front Street at Walnut and Phelps streets.
The Youngstown Municipal Railway Co.'s revenue for the first half of April climbs to its highest half-month figure in many months, but it is still too early to forecast if April's total returns will be enough to avert a fare increase in June.
Company directors approve a $3.6 million expansion program at Bessemer Limestone & amp; Cement Co.'s plant at Bessemer, Pa.
April 27, 1930: Preston E. Thomas, warden of Ohio Penitentiary, emerges from a meeting with the committee appointed by the governor to investigate the prison fire that claimed more than 300 victimsand blames Ohio legislators for his plight. He says he has begged for aid for years.
Congressman John G. Cooper of Youngstown predicts that a bitter fight in the U.S. Senate over an omnibus rivers and harbors bill that contains $110 million in projects will be passed. Among the projects funded by the bill is a survey of the Beaver-Mahoning-Shenango canal.
Four Baltimore & amp; Ohio passenger trains leaving Youngstown have their times changed. Three morning trains now leaving at 5:35, 9:45 and 9:55 will leave instead at 4:55, 9:40 and 10:05. An evening train now leaving at 9:15 will leave at 9:08. A new through-sleeper service has been added to the evening train, which will arrive in Washington at 7:15 a.m., Baltimore at 8:30 and Philadelphia at 10:29.