Today is Thursday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2006. There are 262 days left in the year. On this

Today is Thursday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2006. 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 1906, playwright, novelist and poet Samuel Beckett is born in Dublin, Ireland. 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 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 fillswith water from the Chicago River.
April 13, 1981: Ohio's first tornado of the spring storm season hits Muskingum County, and strikes so fast it was over before some people could take shelter, a witness says.
Conrail will close its Brier Hill diesel shop permanently with the end of the afternoon shift and 46 employees will be laid off.
Former Salem City Engineer Sat Adlaka cleans out his office after he failed to meet the city's seven-mile residency requirement. The Boardman residents files an appeal with the city Civil Service Commission, challenging his release as engineer, a post the city council abolished after it was declared vacant.
April 13, 1966: Three Mahoning County deputies, including one investigator, have resigned from the Sheriff's Department to take higher-paying jobs on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Lordstown.
Warren industrialist Raymond J. Wean Sr. gains controlling interest in the McKay Machine Co. of Youngstown.
The Lordstown Board of Education studies a recommendation from the Department of Interior's Bureau of Outdoor Recreation that Lordstown Military Reservations 500 acres be made a park, with the exception of 37 acres the school has requested and 11 acres for reserve training.
April 13, 1956: Eleven Federal Reserve banks raise their interest rates from 21/2 to 23/4 percent in an effort to hold down heavy business borrowing and record consumer buying on the cuff.
A proposal to use facilities at the Mahoning Tuberculosis Sanatorium to house indigent sick persons requiring hospital care was approved by general hospital administrators and medical representatives at the sanatorium.
Youngstown Mayor Frank X. Kryzan says, "Township trustees, county commissioners and city officials must all work together for regional programs to take care of the tremendous problems that are being brought into this area through new industrial developments."
April 13, 1931: Winding up the season with an unbroken string of 44 victories, Jack McKeown's undefeated Leavittsburg A.C. girls claim the national championship and only a May 2 game with the Edmonton Grade in Canada stands between them and the international title.
Leonard T. Skeggs, general secretary of the YMCA, is named chairman for the 13th annual drive from May 19 to May 26.
With at least $1.5 million tax delinquency looming for the first half of the year and no brighter prospect for the second half, Youngstown school officials say they are "against a stone wall."