Today is Palm Sunday, April 9, the 99th day of 2006. There are 266 days left in the year. On this

Today is Palm Sunday, April 9, the 99th day of 2006. There are 266 days left in the year. On this date in 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
In 1682, French explorer Robert La Salle reaches the Mississippi River. In 1939, singer Marian Anderson performs a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, after she was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. In 1940, during World War II, Germany invades Denmark and Norway. In 1942, American and Philippine defenders on Bataan capitulate to Japanese forces; the surrender is followed by the notorious "Bataan Death March" which claims nearly 10,000 lives.
In 1947, a series of tornadoes in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas claim 169 lives. In 1959, NASA announces the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton. In 1963, British statesman Winston Churchill is made an honorary U.S. citizen. In 1965, the newly built Houston Astrodome features its first baseball game, an exhibition between the Astros and the New York Yankees. (The Astros win, 2-1.)
In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger ends its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. In 1996, Dan Rostenkowski, the once-powerful House Ways and Means chairman, pleaded guilty to two mail fraud charges in a deal that brought with it a 17-month prison term. (Rostenkowski served 15 months and was pardoned by President Clinton in 2000.) In 2003, jubilant Iraqis celebrate the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, beheading a toppled statue of their longtime ruler in downtown Baghdad and embracing American troops as liberators.
April 9, 1981: Youngstown police scuffle briefly with a group of parents and citizens at the board of education offices after the group refuses to allow board members and teachers to leave the building after a negotiating session, the first since April 2 in the 35-day-old teachers strike.
Gen. Omar Bradley, the last of the nation's great World War II military commanders and the last of its five-star generals, dies in New York after attending a dinner of the local chapter of the Association of the United States Army. He was 88.
General Motors announces that its new J-cars will be arriving in dealer showrooms May 21, a week later than planned, because of production delays. The cars are being produced at Lordstown and South Gate, Calif.
Four students from Mahoning, Trumbull and Stark counties are among 1,460 high school students nationwide named winners of National Merit scholarships. They are Scott Large of Poland, Ilene Timko of Hubbard, Scott Ryan of Niles and Curtis Blasiman of Marlington.
April 9, 1966: Three men are arrested for stealing metal pipe and fittings from the old County Home on Herbert Road, Canfield. All are charged with larceny. In a separate incident, a Youngstown man was arrested for stealing $1,100 worth of copper from two homes under construction in Canfield.
The Mahoning County Community College Board of Trustees approves revisions in its plan, scaling down the proposed building plan from $20 million to $16 million. An option has been taken on a site at Starr's Corners.
Two men flee out the front door of Danica's Tavern, 2630 Shirley Road, and right into the arms of city police, who surrounded the building after the burglars triggered an alarm.
April 9, 1956: Facilities urgently needed by Youngstown University will be made possible in the next four years by a $2 million development fund, Dr. Howard W. Jones, university president, says.
Two Youngstown Brothers, Carmine and Michael Ficocelli, will be honored at the final concert of the season of the Youngstown Philharmonic Orchestra for their long years of service to the music community.
Ernest W. Travis, supervisor for the Equitable Life Assurance Society in Youngstown, and his wife return from a two-month tour of the Mediterranean and Middle East. He says the area is a simmering caldron of hates and disputes that may boil over into a war involving many nations if one wrong step is made.
Alan Lebowitz, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Lebowitz, 1850 Fifth Ave., Youngstown, is awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for a year's graduate study a Yale University. He will graduate in June from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in English.
After serving nine years of a life term in the Ohio Penitentiary, Joseph Benarik is returning to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for a new trial. He and another Cambpell man were convicted in the 1946 shooting death of John Dalton, a recluse who lived in an abandoned streetcar.
April 9, 1931: U.S. House Speaker Nicholas Longworth dies of pneumonia, leaving the Republicans with only a one vote margin in the House. The Republicans have 216 members; Democrats, 215, and Farm-labor, 1. In Longworth's valedictory statement as speaker to the adjourning 71st Congress, Longworth said that it was "only an all-wise Providence who is going to determine which of the two major parties will organize the next House."
A "honeymoon in the air" ends in tragedy near Jefferson when an 18-year-old bride of a week and her 22-year-old aviator husband are killed when their plane crashes as they wave good-bye to relatives. Dead are Rollie and Ruth Patterson. Patterson owned the two-seater open bi-plane for two years and conducted a passenger and instruction business at Ashtabula.
James A. "Jimmy" Green is named clerk of the court of common pleas of Mahoning County.
The Ohio Edison Co. opens to the public its new office building at Boardman and Champion streets.