Today is Tuesday, May 9, the 129th day of 2006. There are 236 days left in the year. On this date in

Today is Tuesday, May 9, the 129th day of 2006. There are 236 days left in the year. On this date in 1961, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemns television programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
In 1502, Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere. In 1754, a cartoon in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette shows a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption reads, "Join or die." In 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures, is ratified. In 1926, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett become the first men to fly over the North Pole. In 1936, Italy annexes Ethiopia. In 1945, U.S. officials announce that a midnight entertainment curfew is being lifted immediately. In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approves the pill Enovid as safe for birth control use. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opens hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon. In 1978, the bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, who'd been abducted by the Red Brigades, is found in an automobile in the center of Rome. In 1980, 35 motorists are killed when a Liberian freighter rams the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section to collapse.
May 9, 1981: A 150-year-old building on Bank Street, formerly a one-room schoolhouse and more recently a duplex, is gutted by fire.
An antitrust action against the city of Warren is filed by Howland Township in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, charging the city has coerced annexations for nearly a decade through a monopoly on water.
Opponents of the Westview housing project have exhausted all state and federal government remedies in their attempt to stop the 124 housing units from being built on Youngstown's West Side.
May 9, 1966: A rare May snowstorm blankets the Youngstown area with one to four inches of snow, weighing down tender spring growth and threatening budding fruit trees and flowers.
Lt. Peter Bernstein, 25, a Youngstown Air Force pilot, is providing old and new clothing to dress 80 children in a refugee camp in Vietnam.
Mill Creek Park is installing an archery range in the James L. Wick Recreation Area next to the Par 3 golf course.
May 9, 1956: Voters in Warren and Weathersfield townships approve a zoning ordinance. A recent interest in zoning has been spurred by expected industrial and residential expansion that would take place with the location of two General Motors plants in Lordstown.
Construction of General Motors Corp.'s huge Fisher Body-Chevrolet assembly plant at Lordstown will be delayed for six months, T.H. Keating, general manager of the Chevrolet division, announces.
Dr. Gordon Keith Chalmers, 52, president of Kenyon College, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Cape Cod Hospital at Hyannis, Mass.
May 9, 1931: Vice squad officers break up what they believe to be one of the biggest lottery rings in Youngstown when they arrest five men and confiscate $372 in cash and a large number of lottery slips.
Thousands of visitors, including 1,300 talented Welsh singers, arrive in Warren from three states for the greatest Eisteddfod northern Ohio has ever seen.
Five Mahoning County common pleas judges may meet to decide on Prosecutor Ray Thomas's application for an additional $2,000 allowance for investigation of criminal matters.
No mother should be in jail on Mother's Day, Judge Harry Hoffman feels, so Mrs. Jean Smith is being released on her own recognizance over the weekend. She will return Monday to finish her 30-day sentence for failure to pay a $100 liquor fine.